


Miss Violet Sterling, and the Woeful Tale of Allerdale Hall...

by Punk_in_Docs



Category: British Actor RPF, Crimson Peak (2015), Crimson Peak (2015) RPF, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: (sort of), Allerdale Hall, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angry Kissing, Angry Sex, Angst and Tragedy, Assassins & Hitmen, Attempted Murder, Cliffhangers, Death, Estate Agents, F/M, Ghost Sex, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Heroes, Heroines, Killing, Kindred Spirits, Marriage Proposal, Murder, Past Character Death, Property Surveyor, Rejected Suitor, Seduction, Spirits, Supernatural Spirits, Tragedy, Woman Power, angry ghosts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 06:17:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5279948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Punk_in_Docs/pseuds/Punk_in_Docs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Allerdale Hall?” Violet asked with incredulity, just making sure her ears had not tricked her. “… And you wish for me to go there and survey it?” She asked in a timid voice.</p><p>Her fathers expression did not change. His eyes grew rather more serious.</p><p>“The train line ends at Whitehaven. You take the coach the rest of the way for the last day.” He assured her. Violet blinked, still in a state of disbelief.</p><p>"Some rich American clients showed interest if it could be redeveloped with the right repairs. You shall go and see what needs doing to make the house able to be lived in again. Just, be on your guard. There is said to be strange sightings in and around that house. Supernatural rubbish and all that. But that is all foolish nonsense I’m sure...” He waved off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Penances...

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little fic that has been knocking about in my head, I'm trying my best to update all my other works too. My mind is too active. This will be my first and probably last Crimson Peak themed story. My one scary murder ahh, look a ghost type fic. So, enjoy for now, as always. good feedback, and I'll continue it, so enjoy and please leave some comments or kudos or whatever you like...

 

~ Windermere, Cumbria. England. 1909 ~

 

“Allerdale _Hall?_ ”

Violet asked with incredulity, just making sure her ears had not tricked her, and those were, in fact, the words that had just made their shocking way out of her father’s mouth. Their family business was proud amongst their small town, near Carlisle. The baron and desolate landscape of northern England was as tough, unforgiving, and as weathered as it’s individuals. But still, they were reputed to be the finest estate and land management, and property surveyors, this southern side of the Scottish boarder.

She felt proud to say she was an upstanding staff member amongst all those who worked for Sterling, Forger & Beaumont, Estate Management & Co. Not a lot of other companies in the near vicinity could boast of having a female working for them, save for the secretaries and office ladies who made tea and fetched biscuits. Violet Sterling had muscled and fought her way into her father’s company tooth and nail, to prove she was worthy enough to work under him. Her mother had thought it a ridiculous notion, most young ladies dreamed of their debutante gowns and completing their seasons. She had never been weighed down with such silly fodder. She had grown up wanting to work and earn her place in the world of men's commerce.

She was laughed at of course, constantly. Men who they dealt with raised their brows at such an ‘illicit’ situation of having to deal with a silly female when they had been promised service from a reputed company. Some had even laughed in her face, patronising her, mocking her, telling her to come back when she had found where women were supposed to belong in their place. Some dared even spit in revulsion at her face that she was daring to ‘un-sex’ herself in the eyes of men, and that she ought be whipped until she better knew her place. That she was forgetting the very essence of womanly feelings and propriety. That she should have been raised with the notion that she should dream of being a wife, cooking meals for her husband, and doing naught but cleaning his home and giving him children and staying silent as the grave all her wedded miserable life. And how very dare she dream otherwise, to get dressed and to go to work, every day, and have the audacity to demand a wage from the company, and from hard working men. She may aswell have stolen money right out of their pockets as far as they were concerned. Of course, the colleagues with whom she worked had found it odd at first, but they had grown used to her now.

She was very accomplished at mathematics, sums, arithmacy and the like. She was a strong woman, and pragmatic too to boot, she spoke strongly and powerfully. She met their disapproving glares with a strong chin. She would not dare claw her way into a job under her father to let the words of some silly men fell her. But she had remained a disappointment to her family as of late.

Because she refused to marry.

She may aswell have brought a cooking apron, and signed away her future as a miserable spouse if she allowed herself to be thrust into marriage as far as she was concerned. A good husband would never let her continue her job for anything in the world. And the man her father had in mind didn’t much inspire her to want to marry him either. It was her Father’s colleague and business partner, The Son of Mr Edward Beaumont, a one Mr James Beaumont. He was a nice man she supposes, a handsome face, long and regal, made ethereally beautiful by his hypnotising blue eyes and his full cupids bow lips. He had a head full of wonderfully blonde hair, was genteel and a proper gentleman. She had worked with him many times before, and he confessed she was a sensible and admirable woman. Though she had overheard his father slander her enough times to know he didn’t entirely approve of her all that much. So James must’ve been speaking for himself in that manner. _That_ , she did admire about him.

But she could not marry him. This she knew. She watched with pain as he had dropped to his knee, with a fine ring in their front parlour, at her feet, and declared to her he had £10,000 a year, and he wanted to marry her. And she had refused him. Her father had been more than outraged, for it was the one time in his life he had insulted and demeaned her. He had said she was marrying outside her class, and she should be grateful he had even _considered_ asking _her_ , stooping so low as to take the stupid likes of her reckless mulishness into consideration for marriage. Why couldn’t she be like her well to do brother, Charles, up in London as a lawyer, why was she such a disappointment. On and on he had screamed at her, spitting nails and various other tools at her until her ears bled. He had never whipped her as a child, but he declared after hearing of her refusal that he ought to if but to teach to her lesson once and for all. But that was three weeks ago now, and now, it appears, her father was intent on sending her off on a job in order for her to prove her worth to him. To see if his donkey headed, regret of a foolish daughter could redeem herself to his eyes.

“But, I thought that place had been sold on many years prior, when the previous owner sold it off?”

Violet asked, seeing her father’s granite faced expression staring back humourlessly at her. His grey eyes looked sunken and tired, and his cheeks were hollow and gaunt on his long pale face, masked by his large grey mutton chops. His silvery hair swept back on his head. He was sat opposite her at his grand desk, having called her in for a ‘word’ and from previous experience, she knew that when her father requested a ‘word’ off her, it was rarely a delight to receive it.

“It was, Mrs Edith Sharpe wrote to us not last week, telling us that she sold the house off to her local estate agents, but they were unable to sell it. The house was in bad condition, and all those who viewed it, it seems, it did not meet with their satisfaction. They all similarly complained of it’s rotting state, it would take a fortune to repair to rights again, and there seemed to be an odd, sort of air, to the place according to the customer reports…”

Her father explained. Sliding an estate agents weathered old photograph across the desk to her. Violet leaned over to better take a look at it. From the outside, she could not deny it looked gothic, and quite impressive. Though she’d heard rumour that the lovely old ruin was crumbling to pieces. She sat back, as her father spoke up again. She met his icy grey eyes.

“The house was cleared of most belongings several years ago. But, we have rich potential buyers on the horizon, all of whom would be satisfied with such a house once it is restored to it’s former glory…”

“Allerdale Hall..”

She spoke again, rolling the word round in her head as she thought, her bluey grey marbled eyes rolled off to the side as she thought.

“Didn’t our local contact go and survey it a couple of days ago? I’m sure he did. Mr Palmer. I’m certain it was him. He went to Allerdale to gather some figures for us on it’s state and the cost of repair.” She spoke slowly but certainly.

She watched as her fathers face grew grim. And he drew out another picture from his desk drawer. And when he placed it in front of her, she recoiled, her hand clasping over her mouth and her eyes wide with fear.

“Mr Palmer is dead.”

Her father admitted stonily. But she could deduce that herself from the picture. Because it was a grainy black and white shot of a man led on a patch of blood soaked wooden floorboards. Blood soaking his chest, and she had seen enough broken limbs from her brother when they were young, to know that both his arms and legs were broken, his neck too, it rested at an most odd angle. His glassy eyes and horrified expression gazing just beyond the camera like a ghostly plea from beyond the grave.

“The ruddy idiot went up to the third floor, where there is the most extensive damage to the floorboards from the open and broken ceiling. He was found just two days ago by a local postman. He had plummeted through three floors of the landing coming to his death. All because of some rotten floorboards.”

He explained, putting the photo out of sight before she swallowed in fear at it once more. Her marbled blue eyes wide with terror and sadness.

“… And you wish for me to go there and _survey_ it?” She asked in a timid voice.

Her fathers expression did not change. His eyes grew rather more serious.

“F-father, It is atleast a three day trip, to Allerdale hall.”

“The train line ends at Whitehaven. You take the coach the rest of the way for the last day.” He assured her.

Violet blinked, still in a state of disbelief.

“Watch out for the decayed floorboards on the third floor..” He confirmed in a warning.

“Father.” Violet burst out in a shocked snap.

“You are in no position to fight me upon this, Violet. Not after all the grief you have caused to this family in the previous few weeks. Your mother was kept abed and ailing for a week after you refused Mr Beaumont, out of shame and repulsive distress because of her daughter’s actions. Now I hear he is soliciting after Mary Jane Seymour to marry instead. And you made a spectacle of him when you so viciously rejected him on so little pathetic grounds. I thought we had raised you better than to be so arrogant. But clearly I was wrong. You are spoilt. You may be a hard worker and have given this company fine figures, and a good turn over, I grant. But I cannot afford to keep on an unwed daughter who is approaching spinsterhood. You have been on the shelf for nearly eight years. It is time you did what was right by your family. Time you made us proud for once in your life…”

“So I am to be sent away to some crumbling, dangerous and creaky old house as penance?” She asked.

“Not as such. Just whilst I decide how to fix this fine mess you’ve caused.” He growled lowly.

“Mr Beaumont was furious at your refusal of his son. It has taken all I have to get him to stay on at this company. If he withdrew his money, we would be destitute. Your careless actions have poisoned us all. Violet.”

“I get no say in this at all?” She asks raising her voice.

“ _NONE WHATSOEVER YOU INSOLENT LITTLE CHILD_.”

Her father shouted back. Panting through his anger. She knew he had blood pressure ailments. So she decided it best to accept his anger and leave it at that. She too panting in anger and her own reservations on the matter.

Violet knew there was nothing she could do to dissuade her father’s wishes. He was like a dog with a marrow bone. When he knew what he wanted, he rarely let go for anything in the world. So, it appears, like a young heroine in a Henry James novel, she was being packed off, not to a boarding school, but a creepy old house with a strange air about it to try and repent for her sins in remaining unwed.

She took a deep breath.

“What am I to survey the property for? Is it to be turned into something else and renovated?”

She asked, her eyes withdrawn, looking down into her lap as her father spoke, watching his daughter intently.

“Yes. Some rich American clients showed interest if it could be redeveloped with the right repairs. You shall go and see what needs doing to make the house able to be lived in again. Just, be on your guard. There is said to be strange sightings in and around that house. Supernatural rubbish and all that. But that is all foolish nonsense I’m sure...” He waved off.

Violet scribbled down a few things in her pocketbook. Before she snapped it shut in her lap.

“When do I leave?” She asked in quiet irritability.

“Next week, on Monday.” He gruffed back, just as petulantly.

“But you are not going alone…”

He rewarded, and before she could protest such a thing. Her Father’s office door swung open, and a tall familiar figure strode through. His face wasn't set in a gentle smile like it usually was, it was painted with slight disdain and distance to his eyes. And that was something Violet had never experienced coming from James Beaumont's face. Usually he looked so placid and kind.

Today, however, he looked _thunderous_. It was the first time she had seen him since she refused him. His eyes were set like chips of blue ice, and his mouth was an unamused line. He was dressed today in a black long overcoat, flapping at his sides, with grey and black pinstripe trousers on his long legs. Aswell as an acutely pressed white shirt, with a black and white striped tie. His blonde hair was as artfully combed and styled as it always was. But he was glaring all of hell’s hatred at her. that much she knew she deserved, atleast.

“Good afternoon Mr Sterling. Afternoon Miss Violet.” He bit out cruelly.

Violet downcast her eyes, after nodding to acknowledge his polite greeting. He probably didn’t want to say hello to her, he most likely wanted to see her thrown under a moving carriage, instead.

“Afternoon, James.”

Her father greeted, watching his daughters reserved decorum because of the young man’s entrance into his office.

“I was just telling Violet that she is to be participating to Allerdale Hall aswell.”

 _Aswell?_ She flinched _. Surely her father would not be that cruel? - Surely not…_

She whipped her head up to face her father.

“You shall be accompanying James, his father sent him on to survey the property also.”

Her father sneered at her.

She was not one for tears, but at that cruel twist of the knife in the wound, she found she would have very much liked to have been. She swallowed and turned to face James.

“Mr Crawley, Mr Tibbett, and Mr Bowditch will be accompanying also. It is a large house. There is a lot to be logged and recorded for the renovations of such a large size. My Father was insistent that it was to be properly undertaken. His health does not permit him to travel, so he sent me on in his stead.”

“A wise choice.”

Mr Sterling spoke up from the opposite side of the desk. Sneering a grin at his daughter who was rather wishing the floor would swallow her whole there and then.

“Is there anything else you require of me, father?”

She asks in a timid voice. Thinking she had better go home and begin to pack up her things for the trip.

“None at all.”

He dismissed cruelly. Picking up some business papers. Not giving a second thought to his daughter as she stood, intending to leave.

She walked past James, seeing he did not acknowledge her. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, and he didn’t even grant her the privilege of meeting her eyes. And why should he?

“It is nice to see you James..”

She spoke softly. Swallowing her tears away.

He made no response.

“How is Miss Mary Seymour? Word has it you are, courting-“

“We are engaged..” He bit off.

She nodded. Trying not to let her tears spring to her eyes.

“You both have my congratulations..”

She offered in a quiet respectful tone after a long silent second.

He didn’t answer that either. He simply nodded.

She understood what that meant. She kept her head down and walked out of her fathers office. Shutting the door behind her, and listening as the two gentleman within spoke business about their upcoming surveyance of Allerdale Hall.

She wiped her tears away as she came to Mrs Lambkin’s desk, she was her father’s plump and ever friendly secretary, who peered over the aggrieved Sterling girl down through her half moon spectacles which hung precariously off her beaky nose.

“I wonder if you could look up a client’s name and address on file, for me, Mrs Lambkin?” Violet asked.

“Certainly dear. What’s the name?” She asked politely.

“Mrs Edith Sharpe. I believe It will be an American address now. And I believe her wedded name is also now, McMichael.” Violet offered.

Mrs Lambkin rooted around for a moment. Until she produced a slip of paper from her desk, wrote down the address and handed it to the young woman. Who thanked her politely, wiped a tear from her eye, and slipped away out of the door without another word.

 

~

 

Five days later, before the intended party headed for Allerdale Hall the following morning. Violet was just taking tea with her breakfast in the front parlour, when their maid slid through the door, notifying her that a letter from New York had arrived, and it was marked ‘urgent’ for her.

Violet stood down her tea, as the maid curtseyed and left her too it.

She ripped open the letter, and eagerly devoured it’s contents.

After procuring Mrs Sharpe’s address, and name. She had written to the woman in New York, and sent an urgent express, asking her about the particulars of her late house. Which she was glad to see she had returned with fervour. Violet picked up her tea and took a sip as she read over the few lines of the letter. And when she got to the last line, before the sincere end and where Mrs Sharpe had signed her name. Cold shivers wracked her spine, and her blood turned to ice in her veins. Her teacup was dropped to her feet as the beverage within spilled all across the carpet.

 

 _Please,_ whatever you do, Miss Sterling, delay your trip if you must, but, please, _heed_ my warning. _DO not go into that house._

 

 

 

 

~

 

 


	2. Late Departures..

 

 

Violet stood in the dark hallway of her family home, adjusting her appearance in the looking glass.

The front door was thrown wide open, and their granite faced Butler, Rowley, was busy helping organise Violet’s luggage onto the carriage which would take them to the station. She stared back at her reflection, looking at the small, plain and pale face which blinked back at her in the mirror. She was no beauty. This was well known. Society Mama’s had hammered this into her in snide remarks under their breath with every ball she had attended, their daughters had too, laughing and leering behind her back.

And after such comments, she began to understand and see why they had said as such. Her skin was pale, her nose too small, her eyes were too big, her teeth were tolerable, they supposed, but she had lips that were far too thin and small to be considered beautiful. Her eyes were a boring ashen grey and considered most ordinary, _dull_ even, but sometimes, when the sun hit them right, they bore flecks of gold, and amber around her irises. If you looked closely enough. But no one had ever bothered too. Her hair was considered dull too by all measures, it rested somewhere between auburn and chestnut red. Not a rich golden brown, nor a buttery shade of blonde, like other commonly normal ladies. 

She had dressed today in a simple heavy grey wool travelling dress, with a heavy black jacket and gloves, and a black bowler hat on her head. Resting atop her averagely coiffed hair. She looked average. She would _never_ be beautiful, she was constantly reminded, and bombarded with the cruel fact that she was to remain eternally, and always _average_.

She steeled her nerves, taking a long and deep breath as Rowley informed her, that all her things were stowed on the carriage, and that they were all ready to depart. She turned, thanking him, before she breezed out of the door. Her father was at work, and had not relayed his goodbyes to her. Her mother was still abed. When violet had poked her head around the door to tell her she was departing, her mother had not said a word, but, ‘ _very good, then.’_ Waving off the stubborn mare with such a paltry parting.

Violet supposed that, after all, she deserved no less.

She walked out onto the pavement which lined the front of their home. Seeing that the small gaggle of gentleman stood awaiting her, beside two carriages, as there were five of them travelling, it would be too many people to squeeze into one coach. She came to the small party and became dismayed to find she could only see Mr Beaumont, Mr Bowditch, and Mr Tibbett. There was no sign of Mr Crawley as of yet.

“Are we ready to embark?”

Violet asked as she came close to the small group of men. Her eyes unsure of whom just exactly, to rest on. Her eyes eventually settled on James, Mr Beaumont.

“Crawley is late. Something of which he never is. Yet the man lives not three streets away.”

He stated lowly, and with little patience.

“He’d best hurry himself, we have a train to catch, I would not wish for us to miss it..” Violet spoke.

“I’m sure he will make himself present shortly...”

James stated blandly, as if he were bored of talking to her.

Violet nodded.

“Pray. Do not work yourself into a snit, Miss Violet. One thing we don’t need on this trip is the likes of a hysterical woman.”

Mr Bowditch sneered at the young lady. Unable to believe that of all the able bodied, and professional men at the office who could have been selected for to lead this trip. Mr Sterling had to pick his mare of silly daughter to accompany them. Damn silly girl would probably only get in the way of men trying to do their jobs…

Violet levelled a hard stare to Mr Bowditch.

He was _not_ , and had _never_ been a nice man, and nor ever would he be.

Ever since she first started at the office, he had approached her father many times, in secret, and begged for him to lay off his daughter as an upstanding member of the company. Stating she was a fool, a troublemaker, a tempestuous _slip_ of a idiotic girl who would cost their company profits. But, Mr Sterling had not listened to a word the man had to say. He reminded Violet of a rat. A filthy, sneaking, horrible, grimy, black sewer rat. And his nature was just as such. He was unmarried, so far as she knew, and it was not hard to determine why.

He was thin, gaunt nearly, and tall. He had a pointed nose which he took great delight in sneering down at other people over. His fingers were practically skeletal and emaciated, the skin stretched tight over such wasted hands. His eyes were beady and sunken in his pale, bony face, and they darted about like dark diamonds as he spoke. And when he grinned, leering his complaint at her, she could see his teeth were small and jagged. Ugly and yellow, and his façade was about as palatable as that of his perfidious character. On his tall undernourished body, he wore a grey tweed suit, with a scarlet waistcoat, and a black bowler had perched atop his head of thinning silver hair.

“ _Do not_ mistake me, Mr Bowditch, when I say if you are worried about anyone on this trip being hysterical, then I assure you, that such flustering's will most _certainly not_ originate from _me_ …”

Violet spoke powerfully, her chin held high, and her eyes flared with stiff anger towards the man.

He chuckled at her rebuff. Sneering down at her in a lofty and arrogant manner.

Stood just behind her, Mr Beaumont let a very slight smile twitch the corner of his lips at hearing her defend herself so passionately. She was not a woman who melted away into insignificance when her dignity was challenged. She met it head on, with fire in her eyes and her words. He _liked_ that about her.

Behind Mr Bowditch, Mr Tibbett chuckled at the bravado of the girl. And Violet knew he was a much more agreeable character to her, than Mr Bowditch.

Mr Tibbett always took his hat off when he came indoors, always stood when a woman entered the room, and he would always kiss their hand’s in greeting. He was a portly man, with a flabby stomach, a bald head, and rounded and flabby features. But his eyes were not as dark and untrustworthy as Bowditch, his eyes were a warm brown that softened with politeness as he spoke to people. When she chuckled, Violet saw the wedge of glinting gold that replaced one of his back teeth, she saw it sparkle in the dim overcast light of day above them.He wore a red suit, stretched to burst over his frame, with a forest green waistcoat underneath. He too wore a bowler hat, as was common for gentleman’s fashion, but his was brown, with a small red feather in the band. He folded his hands behind his back and chuckled at her setting down Mr Bowditch in such an empassioned way. He was a very satisfactory business partner to collaborate with, and Violet felt glad he was accompanying them on this long trip. He was an odd sort of old soul, who belonged to a long since faded age of rule and cordiality. And he often reminded her, and everyone, of his placid, dependable and kind force.

“Mr Bowditch. Sir. I do not believe you know whom you are insulting. Miss Violet, here has given this company more good turnovers, than _you’ve_ had hot dinners…”

Tibbett winked, Seeing the young woman’s look of determined rage, _soften_ , if only but a _little._

“ _Thankyou_ , kindly for your defence, Mr Tibbett.”

Violet spoke, glaring at Bowditch, who sniffed regally, as if she were a little bug below him, whom he’d very much like to swerve his heel on, and grind to a pulp under the sole of his boot. He didn’t meet her glower. And she wasn’t surprised in the slightest, as if his character was not bad enough on it’s own, he was a coward too. Always one to cause confrontation, never one to become involved in it. If there was one thing she hated, it was men who treated her in such a way as he.

“Has Crawley sent word as to why he is late?”

Mr Beaumont asked the two gentlemen.

“Indeed, not, Sir.” Tibbett responded.

Mr Beaumont let out a flat unamused ‘ _Mnn_ ’ sound, deep from his throat, which was underpinned with errant disappointment.

“Perhaps we should depart now, after all, Miss Violet was right, we should not wish to miss our train. The next does not leave until Wednesday, and we cannot afford such delay. Crawley is clearly otherwise indisposed. I shall send word for him to meet us at the station, if he is able..”

Mr Beaumont remarked plainly, checking his silver pocket watch which was cradled down in his large hands. Violet turned to him as he spoke. He was dressed in a stark black suit, a white shirt, with the only colour to his tall, handsome frame, being the red tie knotted about his neck. He wore a top hat on his head, to showcase he was of higher rank and wealth than the two other gentlemen.

“Mr Crawley is usually so, _reliable_. I cannot fathom he would be late for anything but a truly grave reason…”

Violet interjected.

“Nonetheless. He _is_ _late_.”

Mr Beaumont repeated, flatly.

“Perhaps, if we waited just, _two_ minutes more.”

“We _do not_ have the _time_ to spare . Miss Sterling.”

He bit off in a clipped tone.

“And I do not wish to be the one to disappoint our business trip. No. We shall leave now. Crawley should have been more prepared than this. It is _inexcusable_..”

“Perhaps if you gave a man a _chance_ , Instead of just writing him off the _second_ he disappoints you, then maybe you’d meet with more luck, James…”

Violet began.

“I do not give _anyone_ a second chance.”

He ground out in a growl.

“Least of all people who I think highly of. I cannot stomach such foul disappointment from people whom I used to think _better_ of than they _deserve_.” He bit off.

She stayed silent.

“And in future, Violet, you are to address me as _Mr_ Beaumont. There may have been a time where you earned the right to call me otherwise, but you, _yourself_ , _snubbed_ that right.”

He barked loudly.

Again. She said nothing. _She couldn’t._ Violet swallowed. Unable to fight him on this matter further.

“Take to your carriage, Miss Sterling, or we shall miss our train.”

He ordered one last time. As if he were a strict parent, and she, an unruly child

She didn’t like following orders of people who insulted her, but just on this one occasion, she moved to obey him on it. The three men watched her pick up her skirts, face stony as she walked away.

“How exciting. A little Lover’s _tiff_..” Mr Bowditch sneered.

He carried on sneering, even when James turned and gave him the most unpleasant glare, that just demanded to be fought against. Everyone knew that Violet had rejected him. And for Bowditch to make such a snarking remark was a testament to how sickeningly repulsive his character was, and how he liked rising to the bait and saying inappropriate things.

Mr Beaumont then, turned on his heel and headed for the coach. The two associates doing the same after him. That was, until they heard a voice cut through the busied natter and bustle of the pavements around them.

“Please, Mr Beaumont. Mr Tibbett. Miss Sterling, _Wait!!…”_

Came the gruff voice, shouting from where he was running down the street.

Violet, who had been about to step up into the carriage, turned from where she had her body half braced into it, and saw a fairly young man, skirt his way past pedestrians to come to their travelling party, on the side of the road.

He could not have been more than four and twenty, she supposed, much closer to her and James’s age, than that of the middle aged likes of Tibbett and Bowditch. She had never seen this man before, but he was obviously from some great wealth and money. He was attired in a thick donkey brown wool suit, with a brown bowler hat to his headful of wavy brown hair, and his smile was wide and hinted of cheekiness. In his other hand, he held a large suitcase. And he was determinedly bounding down the pavements to them all.

He panted, smiling still, as he came to a stop by Mr Beaumont, who had been about to clamber inside the carriage with Violet.

“Thank goodness, I made it, I am _so sorry_ I am so late..”

He spoke through wheezes for air.

“Forgive my rudeness, Sir, but I believe we do not _know you_..”

Violet spoke, her brows pulled too in a slight frown.

“ _Oh,_ _forgive me,_ Miss Sterling. My name is Seth. Mr Seth Crawley…My Father was meant to accompany you today...”

He introduced, reaching his hand out for her to shake it. From up close, Violet could see that when he smiled, his front tooth, crafted purely out of a chunk of silver, winked at her in the sunlight. Just like the hue of his dark, bland, silver eyes.

He then reached over and shook Mr Beaumont’s hand.

“My father, unfortunately, fell ill just this night passed. So he sent me on in his stead to ensure that your party was not left wanting.” He smiled, an easy smile, in explanation.

“Oh, dear. I do hope it is nothing of too graver manner?” Violet asked.

“Not too, Miss, Not too. But his chest ails him in the cold, some days. Some days are worse than others, and I take it that Allerdale hall is very cold, indeed.” He spoke.

“Therefore he would not be in such good health to undertake it properly.”

Violet nodded.

“We had better get on our way, we are already late from waiting for you, Crawley.” Mr Beaumont growled lowly.

“Again. I offer you my most humble apologies, Sir.”

He bowed, taking off his hat, bowing ever so slightly, with empathy painted all over his face.

“You are travelling in the first carriage, with Mr Bowditch, and Mr Tibbett.” James explained.

Mr Crawley turned, and saw the coach he would be travelling in.

“Very good Sir, Thankyou, Sir.”

He smiled, before placing his hat on his head, shuffling it down to rest where it belonged, before he turned about and walked away to the first carriage. But as he did, as he turned ¾ of the way away, he caught Violet’s eyes, and when he did, she paused. His face seemed to shift suddenly through the carriage window where she sat, from the once previous sunny demeanour it had been, it now changed into something so haunting, that Violet’s blood turned to thick sharp ice in her veins, and the hair on the back of her neck, stood straight with horror. Where the shadow from the coach passed over his face, his eyes turned not grey, or silver, but black, and terrifying to look into. Like the cold, dead, lifeless grey eyes of a shark. His smile suddenly wasn’t handsome, or cheeky. It was scarily predatory, almost. And the way his gaze burned to her with such intensity from those eyes, left her breathless. Seth Crawley wasn’t handsome, or amiable, she decided. His exterior moment’s beforehand had been pleasant, but this gaze told her, that perhaps that was an overestimation on her part.

His eyes scared her, and she prayed for a silent second that it was just a _fleeting_ suspicion.

 

She _really prayed..._

 

~


	3. Mr Crawley's Warning..

 

~

 

The train journey was not too arduous to undertake. They had two first class carriages, of which, were plush and comfortable.

To her horrified embarassment, Violet found that as the train juddered along the tracks into the night, she had succumbed to sleep from the lulling sound of the steady rythmn it made as it chugged along the rails, and so she slowly drifted off to sleep, closing her eyes and letting her head roll to the side, when she awoke, a few hours later, she found that her head had found a new place to rest, and it was upon Mr Beaumont’s _shoulder_.

She sat bolt upright, and scattered her body as far away from him in the seat as he could manage. For when she had gone to sleep, he had been sat yards away down the seat. But it appears, without meaning too, they had drifted closer together in their slumber. She put aside the way his jacket felt luxuriously soft as her cheek brushed against it, and the scent of his pine wood and musk cologne drifted invitingly up her nose as she laid on him. Luckily, she was able to pull away and content herself with staring out of the window, allowing him to sleep. She dared herself to look across, seeing his breath taking profile, handsomely resting in sleep. Not even stirring when she moved. She was thankful for that much, atleast.

They had all been going over some statistics and figures about the place, earlier, before the night wore on. And as such, she had shed her overcoat, and, he, had divested himself off his jacket, now sat in naught but his waistcoat, as he had loosened his tie, and slumped down in his seat to rest. Mr Tibbett was in the dining car. Mr Crawley and Mr Bowditch were in the second carriage. It seems she and Mr Beaumont were destined to be left in each other’s company for most of this trip. Something of which she was most certainly, not, grateful for.

But she softened to him, she would not be the one to be cruel and offstandish just due to their unfortunate situation in one anothers lifes. It was her fault, after all, she did not have it in her to be so nasty to a man who had done nothing whatsoever to wrong her. She reached for her large velvet overjacket, and leaned across to drape it over the sleeping man. Tucking it into his arms so that it didn’t fall off him. There was a slight chill to the air, and she would not wish him to be cold because of it.

She then moved to the window, and took hold of some of the accounting papers that had been left on the small side table by the window, she turned the lamp up a little brighter, and began to read, adding in corrections with her inkpen where they were needed. She also had, in the paperwork that had been brought along, a few worn and faded old photographs of the place, tucked in the pages. She could not deny, Allerdale Hall was a thoroughly impressive building.

It seemed to stand proud, and stoic in the baron landscape in which it was so merrily situated. Of course, from the picture, she could see the grand old manor, the old beauty, had it’s share of problems that came with age. There was a large jagged stub on the roof, where the ceiling had caved in at the highest point. She’d take a guess that eventually wind erosion had battered the house, and left it bleeding to die.

And that’s what was also so odd about the place, it didn’t just seem like a house, to her, perhaps it was her overactive imagination, or the lateness of the hour. But to her the house seemed like it was _alive_. And she knows she be laughed out of any room if she voiced this concern to anyone else...

But to her it was true. The house looked like wounded _feral beast._ It looked like it had been left licking it’s wound from some bigger animal that had hunted after it, and it was moping and wailing in distress at the pain. But if anyone thought it weakened, that would be a _mistake_.

The house held all the innocency of a venus fly trap. Get too close, and it would _snap_ it’s jaws and swallow you _whole_. The gothic exterior was no less impressive in the faded photograph, and she had a feeling that when she saw it in person, she would be all the more moved by it’s dark and unbreachable beauty. A part of her was secretly looking forward to examining the old place.

After all, a house as _old_ as this one, was _bound_ to have its _secrets_.

Secrets plastered into the walls, or hiding in the nooks and crevices of every worn floorboard to its studs. Over time, Violet wagered, the house had shifted from being a place, to a being. A living, breathing, haunting, _creature_.

She became so _engrossed_ in the picture, that she found she could not tear her eyes away from it. Matter of fact, as he eyes moved over one window near the second floor of the house, she became ever more transfixed.

She could see a shape, but more than that, she could see the shape of a _man_.

Stood, watching the camera, from his position inside the house, glaring stonily out of the window. She had it on relaible authority that the house had long since been vacated, yet, these pictures were taken before Mr Palmer succumbed to his _unfortunate_ , and _horrible_ end. And he had been _the only_ person sent out to investigate that house

So _who_ was that man stood glaring at her from in the picture?

“You may need to think about acquiring _spectacles_ , Miss Sterling, your nose, may I point out, is about _two_ centimetres _away_ from the paper..”

Came a dry voice from the doorway.

She jumped, her head snapping up to see Mr Crawley reclining vertically in the doorway like a resting panther. His smile was as dark as earlier, and his sharp slate grey eyes just as so. He was just sliding the glass door shut behind him. Speaking In reverant tones, and moving slowly so as not to wake the slumbering Mr Beaumont.

“Mr Crawley...”

She gasps in surprise, laying down her pen, thankful that she and him were not in the carriage alone. Whatever dark demeanour simmered under his character, no matter how pleasant he may have been, she didn’t fully entrust the man.

“ _Please_ , Miss Sterling, I would be obliged if you’d call me Seth.”

He coos, and as he moves in she can see he is cradling a small cup of steaming tea in his large hands, the fine dainty, bone china cup looking out of place in his brute sized hands.

“Forgive my brashness, but I brought you a cup of tea.”

He explains, moving to rest opposite her on the bench, the swirling steam rising from the teacup, wafting the scent of the hot beverage under her nose, as he placed it down next to the photograph she was so viciously studying.

“Mr Tibbett was so good as to inform me that you take milk, but no sugar..”

He grins, leaning back and folding his arms in his lap. Smiling a teeth baring grin at her.

“That is _most_ kind of you, Thankyou. And if I am to call you Seth, please, feel free to call me Violet. Everytime someone calls me ‘Miss Sterling’ it makes me sound like an badly behaved school girl..” She explained.

He chuckled softly at that, smile tipping wider as he looked across to her.

“You know, my father _always_ thought you an unusual kind of woman.”

He spoke up after a long moment.

“Your father would, firstly, not be _alone_ in that opinion, and secondly, not the first man to think or voice such a thing in regards to myself.” Violet explained.

“It is unusual, for a gently bred lady, such as yourself, to want to, take her place in the world of men’s commerce. To be judged, to be weighed at every turn. Simply because they are all suspicous that you, the weaker sex, do not deserve what you have fought hard for. Most men see it as an insult to their prides.”

“I never set out to insult anyone, Seth. I just want to make _my_ infinately small mark on this vastly large world that seems to have been handed straight over to the _Men_. I fought hard for the job I have earned in my father’s company. I wanted to prove to him that I am not just a skirt with an empty head, ready to be wed as her entire lifes calling. And to this day, men still ask me to fetch their tea, to take notes as their scribe, to run their errands as if I am no better than a secretary at their beck and call. Hot on their heels like a trained dog. _Women_ , Mr Crawley, are not the weaker sex, we are ignored, until we are needed, by men, as no more than wives or mothers. And one day, I hope that we fight hard, to all of us, earn our place in the world alongside the men, as _rightfully_ we should. _Who knows._ The time may come when we can, vote independently from men, live alone, not take a husband, and earn money just as easily as you can.” She explains in a low, patient voice.

He smiles to that.

“A pretty speech, Violet. But most rich, and powerful men are cursed with the indignation to change. They like being at the _very top_ of the food chain, and fancy that no one will topple them from their precious pedestal. Mankind does not like _change_ …”

He pointed out.

“Change, Seth, Is life. To evolve, to grow is a purely human deed. Time is always changing us.”

She assures him.

“You make a very good point. I can see now, why your father hired you. Not just a pretty face, but a pragmatist too. Surely your father is proud of such an _upstanding_ attribute…” He asks.

Violet downcast her eyes, for the first time in their conversation.

Seth’s eyes followed her keenly.

“Forgive me. Did I hit a nerve?” He asks gently.

“My father is at this very second, punishing me.”

She explains.

Seth frowned.

“I do not understand..”

He spoke.

“The only reason I was sent packing off to Allerdale Hall to survey it, is to prove once and for all, my own mettle and worth to my father.”

“Why should you need to prove yourself?”

He asks.

She met his eyes dead on.

“Because I _refused_ to be roped into marriage.”

She explains.

“I refused the love of a _good_ man, and now, I am being disciplined for it.”

She swallows.

“You speak with regret upon the matter..”

He points out.

“Yes.”

She nods.

“Because he is a _fine_ man. A _good_ man. If I married him, I would have a comfortable home, assurance of money in the bank, and a life of wedded bliss, and the joy of a high class rank in society.”

She thought aloud

“I sense, some _hesitance_ , Violet…”

He urges.

“But even with _all that,_ I would still not be _happy_..”

She adds.

“ _Whyever_ not? Surely that is most women’s dream… to find a good amiable man who loves them…”

He pointed out.

“He didn’t _love me_ the way I _loved_ him. Mine, was genuine. But his…. His was at the _urging_ of his father. It wasn’t his own action. That wounded me, to know that I was affected, and he was being pushed. And no husband worth his salt would ever let me leave the house each day to go to work. I would be expected to clean his home, do his laundry, cook his meals, give him children. I don’t want to be a _slave_ to _any_ man. I want to be my own. My own person. And that is something which I am sorely paying for now. The man I once loved, is engaged to someone else, someone who doesn’t harbour such insulting desires, a woman who is beautiful, and common by _every count_ that _matters_ , and my penalty is to know my own stubborn pride and dignity led me to refuse him.”

She spoke slowly, with careful thought.

“Well…”

Seth breathed at last, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You are a, unconventional woman. Violet. But may I say I think it is admirable that you pursue your own happiness, even if it drags _you_ through _hell_.”

He smiled.

She downcasted her eyes, with a slight smile too, reaching for her teacup. When she lifted it away, she revealed to Seth the photograph which had been blocked from his view by the teacup.

“Is _that_ a picture of the property? May I?”

He asks, reaching for it. She nods, sliding it across the table and into his hands.

He studied it carefully for a long, silent moment, his eyes sweeping over the picture just as hers had done. It was a captivating house, after all. Dark, certainly, and morose, but no less _beguiling_. It was the handsomest of old ruins.

“Of course, you know all the old tales about this house, and the previous owners, _do you_ not?”

He asks, a wicked smile on his lips, eyes dark and dancing with light as he slid the photo back down to her again.

Her mind flashed back to the written warning from Mrs Sharpe:

_Please, whatever you do, Miss Sterling, delay your trip if you must, but, please, heed my warning. DO not go into that house._

She blinked away that frightening warning.

“I have heard, _strange,_ rumours of the air about the place being somewhat, odd..” She spoke.

His eyes grinned in macabre delight, shifting, transforming in the flickering flames of the oil lamp. And his smile was almost too horrific to bear.

“It is _haunted_ , so they say.”

Violet crooked a brow.

“ _Really?_ Seth? You and me are a little _too old_ to believe in such nonsense as ghost stories..”

She remarked dryly.

“Whatever is hiding away in that house, Violet, is no mere ghost, and it is of no _human_ breed… It is a creature of such dark deeds, that even hell itself, _spat_  it back out”

He assured her.

she was a pragmatist. She knew she shouldn't believe in such nonsense as ghosts, ghouls and demonic beasts. But at his look. She couldn't afford not to be a little uneasy. She swallowed, her blood prickled, as it flowed through her veins.

“Supposedly. The Master of the house, and his sister, were murdering young women. The master trapping them into marriage with his stunning good looks, seducing rich women, and the sister killing them off slowly when they returned to the house, so they would gain the fortune and continue their incestuous affair together. But, he fell in love, as he had not done before to his previous wives, and when the sister learnt of this, she grew envious. And wild with rage… She tried to kill the wife, she succeeded in killing her brother, and lover, but the wife won in the end. And now, apparantly, the sister and the Master, are bound to the crumbling house for _all of eternity._ ”

He spoke wickedly.

“Each ghost of the murdered wives, and the two masters absorbed into the house, like it _breathed_ them in, devoured them into it’s _very bloodstream_..”

“It has been ten years since anybody lived in that house. It is empty now.”

Violet reassured him.

“Why do you think that not one estate agent has managed to sell it then? _Hm?_ ”

He asked her.

“Because the roof is caving in. It is usual, when people buy such homes, for the roofs to be firmly attatched…” She sarrced.

"I bet you weren't privy to the fact that after Mr Palmer's, _untimely_ , passing..." He began. 

Violet tried hard to flush the image of Mr Palmer's broken and battered body from her mind. 

"...That another estate developer went into the house. trying to ascertain how best to structure scaffolding to fix the caved in roof. And three weeks passed. No letter. No telegram. Nothing sent back to his office of his progress. Nothing. So. Eventually they sent a local policeman to the house. And do you know what he found?" He asked her. 

Violet was certain she was holding her breath _most_ intently. 

"...They found him. Hanging over the third floor banister from his neck. Someone cut his throat. Watched him die. Strung him up. And left him. Bleeding to the floors below..." 

He sneered. 

She swallowed. A breath parting her lips. There seemed to be an aura of violent death hanging over that cursed and beautifully dark house like a vulture. 

“Allerdale Hall is _cursed_. Violet. All who enter it, don’t leave it. And if they do, they leave it bound for the mortuary in body bags.” He sneered.

Violet flickered her eyes down to the photo, looking at it once more.

“ _Well_. We shall see for ourselves tomorrow then, shan’t we?”

Violet insisted strongly.

Seth leered at her.

“Indeed we will.”

He smirks, standing up, and crossing to the door, grinning wildly at her, before he slid out of sight.

“Enjoy your _tea_..”

He smirked, a little too gleefully, before he slid away.

Violet, who had watched him leave, turned her attention back down to the paperwork, stretched below her. Sipping on her tea, she carried on with her work.

However, every so often, her eyes would sweep over to that photograph again. Seeing the tall figure loom out of the shadows, _watching over her._

Seth’s reedy words burned holes into her mind all the while.

_Allerdale Hall is cursed. Violet. All who enter it, don’t leave it_

 

~


	4. Nightmares of One Miss Sterling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> creepy, and Violet is not sure who she should be more afraid of....

 

 

 

She was cold.

No. not cold. Cold implies that she could warm up at any given opportunity. It’s far too a puny word to describe what she was. It implies that she had done something silly like forgotten her coat and gloves.

No. cold wasn’t it.

Paralytic. That was it. Paralytic, or frozen.

She was frozen.

Frozen in both body, and fear.

She swallowed, watching her breath spirit into ghostly spirals up from her chilled lips. Indicating how the place she know stood was as bitterly freezing as any bad winter she had known. The bone numbing chill, mixed with the verging edge of fear and paranoia, was running through her veins. She could hear her blood gonging in her ears. She could almost feel it pulsating, like ice water, all around her body. She felt out of touch. Weak. Like she wasn’t _possibly_ in control of her own body.

Tentatively, she stepped forwards, her legs wobbling and buckling slightly with the movement. To the doorway ahead of her. The rectangular frame of the wood highlighted by the light beyond it in the otherwise pitch black corridor. Again she swallows, trying to dislodge the thick sticky fear in her throat that was worse than _any_ bitter mediciene to choke down. Her hands were trembling, and the hair on the nape of her neck was standing up so ferosciously in terror, it was almost _painful_.

Again, she saw her deep breaths from her chest swirl out into the air in front of her. As she took deep soothing gulps of air to try and still the panic and apprehension that weighed down the entirety of her frail body. Her brain urges her forwards. Despite some small shred of sanity begging, arguing with her to turn and bolt away as fast as she was able.

She came to the door, slowly, as if she were afraid it was some sort of beast. That it would leap out and bite her. She, still with a hand that was shaking like a dried leaf on the wind, grasped the cold brass doorknob. Which shot cold tingles up her arm and down her spine at how icy it was under the palm of her hand.

She twisted, and she pushed. Hearing the whining shriek of the wood as she eased the door to open.

When she saw the room before her, any fear she had out in that corridor, she wanted back. Because what lay in wait for her in here, mad the fear she experienced before the door seem like the sweetest honeyed _dream_.

There were six bodies, laid on mortuary slabs.

This was a morgue. Each tell tale bump of a human corspe, covered with a white sheet.

The air was sterile, and thick, crawling with the coppery salt and tang of blood an disinfectant. Snaking into her senses, making her more scared. Just as much as the reflection of herself bouncing back to her off the glossy back tiles which made up the sparse room.

The door was the only source of light, there were no windows or other exits. The undecorated and sterile room remained shrouded in an eternal cloak of darkness and the dreadful sight of violent death was the greeting it gave her.

Suddenly, far off in her head, Crawley’s dark and disturbed warning made her shudder.

 _“Allerdale Hall is cursed. Violet. All who enter it, don’t leave it. And if they do, they leave it bound for the mortuary in body bags.”_ He had sneered at her. 

And how _poignant_ that warning had proven to be to her…

She swallowed, stepping a little closer. There were six bodies, all led side by side on separate slabs.

And then, there came movement. Before she could reach out and reveal whom the first corpse was, she stumbled back, frightened, as the sheet seemed to move of its own accord. Snapping back off of the poor soul whom it covered. She yelped, backing away.

The first corpse was that of Mr Tibbett.

She gasped, her body jarring in shock to see the friendly man, skin ashen and drained of colour and vitality, staring up at the ceiling. His skin was blue, and she could see frost and ice gathering on his form. Blistering his chest and his face. His once warm, now glazed, brown eyes gazing open at the ceiling, mouth agape in shock. His skin peppered with icicles and snow. Nearly blending into his colourless, ill looking, bluey white, hued skin. There was no doubting that this man was dead. Frozen to death. 

After a second or two, the same thing happened to the second body. The ice white sheet whipped off and up over the cadaver, to allow her to glimpse whom the second dead.

Mr Bowditch.

Even though she did not like the man, she never would have wished to see him dead. Nor in such a manner that told he had met with his death in a violent ending. The skeletal man was led, eyes wide, like Mr Tibbett’s had been, and _red, demonic, almost_ staring darkly at the ceiling, mouth shut in a firm line. Even in death he still managed to look as horrible as his character had been in life. Because what killed him - she imagines though she was no doctor – was the fact she knew that every human could not live after having their throat cut in a jagged line from side to side. Red raw. Oozing blood. 

She swallowed, stumbling back, not wanting to see whom the nect victim was. But whatever ghostly hand was showing it to her, revealed the body to her anyway.

Mr Forger.

He was the business associate whom had traveled ahead of the party, and was scheduled to meet them all at Allerdale hall. He was a large man, and he led there, also dead. She had no affection for the man. He was middle aged, with blue eyes and bristled brown mutton chops. And he lay, eyes wide with terror. With half of the side of his skull missing from whatever bullet had fragmented his brain into splinters. His death would have been sharp, and instananeous, compared to all the others. Whom had suffered their fates with pain and torture.

Then, it was time to learn who the fourth was.

The sheet whipped up, and there lay Mr Seth Crawley.

Atleast, she thinks it was him. His skin was charred and blackened. In a way that left her knowing his death had involved a fire of some description. His skin was blistered, and weeping. His body covered with wounds, namely a singular wound of a knife sinking deep into his chest, sat stark against the burnt skin of his body. But she knew it was him when she saw the grin on his lips as his lifeless green eyes ceiling turned. Wide open and glittering.

She shook her head. She’d seen enough not to want to guess whom the fifth body was. But whomever was controlling this lurid encounter, did not care for her hesitance.

The man she quite possibly loved, Mr James Beaumant was the following victim. Who now lay utterly stone dead.

His handsome face rested, head rolled off to one side, not like the others, who were all stiff as a board, rigid and straight. But Beaumont was led, as if he were comfortably asleep. Chest bare, one hand folded upon it, as if her were resting skin as pale and devoid of light and life like all others had been. And what had killed him, she could see, was also that of a succesion of knife wounds to his chest, littering his perfect body with marred violence. And whomever had done it, had been forceful, there were too many littered across him for it to have been just one strike from the blade. His skin stil wept, the wounds fresh, and she watched his blood bead down over the barell of his ribs. She could feel the sting and stab of tears spear her eyes.

“James…”

She whined. Begging. 

“James, _oh, no. please_. No. James….D-don’t leave me, please don’t leave me…”

She cried, stumbling forwards, her voice breaking from such raw and tender horror. Her hand fought not to spring forwards and carress down the side of his ice cold cheek. Savouring the sight of him for possibky the last time. She was just reaching out to touch his handsomely carved face.

And then there was the matter of the sixth body.

She looked to the sheet, knowing how this horror worked by now. And it slapped back, pooling and showing her, _nothing_.

_Nothing?_

Nothing but the bare slab glinting steel back up at her in the sparse light. The white sheet bunched at the end.

She frowned, looking down it.

Until a blood soaked dagger stabbed down onto the surface from the head of the table. Making a loud clashing noise, making her scream and look up, not able to watch how fresh dripping blood ran down the length of the knife. But that wasn’t what made her scream.

The man whom was holding it was enough to, though.

He was pale, and tall. His body reeked of power and handsomeness. His white shirt and waistcoat drenched in blood. His breeches too. It was soaked down his arm, splattered across his cheeks, which creased as he glimpsed manically across to her. A sickening proud leer stretching his cheeks wide. Showing her the straight line of his fine sparkling teeth, that was like a predators grin. His hair was black, raven black, pushed back, curling at his neck, long and not cropped. And his eyes, his eyes made her shrink back in fear. They were _burning_. Burning their bright blue demonic fun across to her, with the way he looked like he had enjoyed killing the men beside them.

He was panting, raggedly, and his clothes were tousled, inky strands of hair tangling in his eyesight, swaying across his bloodied face.

Now, apparantly, that sixth space was intended for her. Which was made evident when he spoke. His voice a deep, alluring rasp. Strained with the adrenaline and thrill of his killings. 

_“Your turn next, sweet thing.”_

He assures her, stalking closer. Cocking his head to one side, his smile growing in manic joy.

She tried to run, but her feet were lead weights.

And just before he snarls and gets towards her. His long powerful legs eating up the space to come to kill her, and just as she feels the fire and agony as he plunges his dagger into her screaming throat, his hand clasped across her mouth, pressing her back into the tall line of his hard, strong and elegant body. She suddenly see’s something.

Allerdale Hall.

The morgue had slipped away into thin air, spiriting away the bodies of her friends and colleagues, and she can see the exterior view of the Hall. Surrounded by snow, flakes clouding the misty white air, but what made her shriek against the murderous mans hands, squirming as she fought him off, was that all of the windows, were weeping.

They were weeping _blood_.

Blood that gushed from the interior, dripping over the window ledges, trickling down the crumbling brickwork, blossoming onto the unsullied white snow.

She screamed, and then a blinding white light flashed before her eyes, and her body dropped with a jolt. Then something pulled on her arm, and a fuzzy sound interupted her, and she could hear a reptitive clack thud around her, muffled in the air.

This was roughly the point when she was dropped back into reality.

Her eyes snapping open. Her breath raggedly pounding her chest, her eyes taking in the not so scary sight before her. Her vision cleared, and she could see the twin discs of Mr Beaumont’s wickedly blue eyes, leaning close, staring her down. Frowning intently at her with worry.

His blonde hair flopping a curl down over his forehead. He was sat opposite her, frowning mildly. His body rolling and jolting, swaying as she realised they were moving. Then she remembered, it all came flooding back into her conscious mind. They were in a carriage once again. Not miles away from Allerdale Hall now. Having exited the train late just last night, they got on the coach and had been travelling ever since.

Violet felt that her cheek was warmed, marked from where she had rested up against the side of the carriage, next to the window, her mouth was dry, and her hands were still trembling from her vivid gruesome nightmare. She had always been chided by her relatives for having a far too overactive imagination when she spoke her mind.

It appears this lurid dream made her realise how truly _correct_ they might have been in their predictions…

“Are you alright? You look liverish. I thought for a second you’d come down with a fever or something ghastly. You looked ashen, and you were groaning, shifting about in your sleep. I had to try hard just to wake you...”

James offered, his face still stiff with a frown that weighed down heavily upon his handsome features. He looked concerned.

She swallowed, restoring some much needed moisture to her parched lips. When she opened her mouth, she had to clear her throat for her words to make some decipherable clarity.

Only then did she feel the sweat cooling on her brow and chest, making her clammy. She had been so chilled moment’s previous, and when she turned out the window, she could see all around them , the fields and landscape was laden with frost. Enough to tell her, that when they got to Allerdale Hall, it might very well be snowing.

There had been possible talk of a blizzard, a ferocious snowstorm was just a day from overtaking the place, making the Hall unreachable, so the locals all claimed. They had stopped for an hour or two, to take food and drink at a small Inn they passed along the way. When they had asked about the hall, people chuckled, and ignored their enquirys. Telling them, warning them, to turn back now, and return from whatever well-to-do town they came from. No one of sanity asked after Allerdale Hall.

Violet had to admit, she was intrigued by their responses. One man they approached, his kind demeanour snapped like a frail twig on a frosty day. He looked like he had seen a ghost. He shook, and trembled, and said in the lowest, most dangerous voice she had ever heard, that she should not even think of asking about the place. He had claimed that the very _devil_ himself haunted that house. And the tyranny, and dark deeds that happened there ten years previous, had long since been forgotten, but the fear and paranoia about the palatial manor remained. For that house was like a _killing jar,_ it had breathed in deep every sin that had unfolded inside its walls.

Violet had backed away, just in time for him to start mumbling a mantra as she walked away, too scared to hear more.

He had been chanting; _Beware of Crimson peak. Beware of Crimson peak. The very Devil himself walks’s that house, prowling night and day, he kills all who comes near, Miss, you should turn home now while you can, Beware of Crimson peak… Beware of Crimson peak._

She had been most definitely peturbed and frightened by his words. Violet hot footed it back to the safety of the carriage then. Slamming herself inside it. Ignoring the anxious looks Beaumont and Crawley gave her as they were in the same coach. She stared out of the window, until the frosty ridden landscape turned to silver white mush before her eyes, and she gently was rocked away into sleep.

She answered James’s kind enquiry.

“I am fine thankyou. It was not a fever, it was.. a. _dream_.”

She finished blandly, looking down at her mirrored compact in her lap, seeing she did indeed look ashen, as he had so rightly pointed out. Her pale snowy skin was grey with worry, and she did look a touch sweaty and under the weather.

“You were _moaning_ Mr Beaumont’s name, Violet…”

Crawley spoke up from the other end of the bench to James. As he sneered, focusing on rolling himself a tabacco cigarette. She turned to look at him, James too, shocked by his impertinence.

“He practically had to shake you awake, you didn't respond when he called your name. You were jerking and thrashing about, groaning in pain. It took nearly five minutes to rouse you…”

He explained with a keen smile. Meeting her eyes at last.

“It _was just_ …”

She shook her head. “A very _vivid_ dream….”

She mumbled. Waving the trifling matter away. Putting her compact back inside her reticule.

“A very _vivid_ dream about Mr Beaumont, here, no less…”

Crawley smiled, grinning to the two of them.

“Lover’s recollections?” Seth asked.

Violet glared at him for a second, before she concerned herself with looking out of the window again.

“ _Enough_ of whatever indecency it is you are insinuating, Crawley.”

James ordered in a stiff tone, and a frown to match. Where he had leant forwards to wake Violet, he still rested his elbows on his knees as he glowered to their inappropriate colleague.

“Yes. Boss.”

Crawley spat in a glad wily smile. Shaking specs of tobacco from his stained fingers.

“How far are we from Allerdale Hall?”

Violet asked to James. Trying to turn to conversation down a different corner, lest an argument break out between them.

His marbled minty blue eyes caught her own, as he looked at her. She adjusted her gloves on her hands. Keeping herself warmed against the chill that sat close to her, knifing to get in through the glass window.

She shivered slightly, the chill creeping along her back, licking up her neck. Despite her heavy wool dress, today which was a thick black velvet, with a grey front, pearl buttons, and her silver watch chain on her front. Her boots and thick wool stockings were black. And still, she had a black bowler hat atop her coiffed up hair, and though the dress had a somewhat high collar. She still linked a wool scarf about her neck, was wearing leather gloves on her hands, and a large, thick black wool coat. With long draped sleeves, and which reached the ground, swathing her. But still, even with her numerous layers, the usually warm wool layers didn’t keep her warm. Not today. They itched, they made her fidget, she felt _unsettled_ in them.

James peered out of the window. And she watched him, silently, no expression on her face. Mouth straight, eyes keenlywatching him as she swayed with the movements of the carriage.

“I believe, we have just passed the nearest twin, Marbleton ten miles back, that is the closest town, it is not long now. Maybe five or so miles…” He offered politely.

She nodded.

She wasn’t telling him how her stomach tightened with horror at hearing that they were so close. He’d think her silly. One of those stupid hysterical females which she tried so hard to prove she was not. If she showed those men even the slightest bit of hesitation, they’d snub her almost intantly as a worthless waste of space, and send her back to head offices so fast with her tail between her legs, faster than a blink of an eye. She had to be strong. She literally had no room for weaknesses in her life. She didn’t care if it came off as arrogant. For in this day and age, a confident woman holding her chin high, and doing herself proud in front of her male superiors, could only have a large, overinflated sense of self importance to take on such a thing.

But Violet did not. Of course, she put on a brave front. But now and then, it was a façade.

Sometimes, out of the eyes of the men, she’d just let out a tear or two, in frustration, or simply because she was so strained under the weight of the insults and snide remarks that are hurled her way. Often, she'd be able to brush them off. But once every so often, one would sneak under her defences and rock her beliefs to it’s very core. And for a tiny fraction of a second, she would doubt herself. And she would let herself weep. But then she’d wipe her eyes, dry her face. Pull her bartering face back on. Straighten her spine, and plough through the world once more. Unaffected. Strong and prominent. Never would she disclose this, to anyone. How sometimes, she was prone to being so human. When everyone considered her a cold, mechanical machine of a woman.

She had a heart, after all, but a woman who showcased her heart, would be laughed right out of any job that didn’t involve serving men.

“Good.”

She spoke slowly. Turning to the window, watching as a flurry of unexpected snowflakes, battered the window. And the winds began to rage. They could feel the coach start to shake. Being battered by the unfairly baron and strict elements.

“Storm’s brewing…” Crawley announced.

“I deduced that.”

Violet spoke gently back. Eyes still window bound.

“I adore the few first moment’s before the tempest arrives. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up in pleasure. To know that some formidable force of unforgiving nature is about to throw the world off balance, knock the well formed order out of whack. The sheer power of nature taking its course…” Seth met James’s eyes.

“Sends _shivers_ up my spine…” He leered to the man.

James didn’t like the dark glittering pleasure he saw dancing in Crawley’s eyes.

He met Crawley’s grin with a straight face. Giving away no emotion.

“Forgive me, but it doesn’t sound like you’re talking about nature, anymore, Seth…” He awarded lowly.

Seth chuckled.

“Maybe not…”

He smiled, looking out of his own window.

“The whole world’s shifting. You can feel it. Feel it growing, morphing and crumbling like tectonic plates under the very earth. Right under our feet. Throwing off the old ways of our stiff upper lipped Victorian ancestors. Ushering in a new age. New technologies. New ideas, a new _sex_ in the workplace…”

He looked back into the coach. Pointedly letting his eyes slide slowly up Violet’s skirts, examining her legs. James wanted to hit him for that. 

“New ideals about what men should decide the fact of a country. Out with all the upper class, educated, fat businessmen and landowners thrown out of government, letting in the everyman, The workers, the lower classes, the working class, even women, now. They too fight blood and nail for the right to vote. And they are letting them in on how their country is run. Or else, anarchy soon follows.”

“Such as?”

James asked with a frown. Certain that he didn’t care for Crawley’s tone.

“Well. The French started the ball rolling. Killing their gluttonous king, and making a republic from the ashes of his rule, so no one man can grow so fat and greedy on the throne while people starve in his streets. Ever since then. Ideas in countries all over the world have been planted. And no one can kill an idea once it’s makes its nest. American Independence. Not paying their taxes on British goods. And now the Russians. A hopeless Tsar ruling one of the largest land masses on the planet, living in a house three stories high, and having people wait on him, hand and foot to his every whim. While Russian peasants farm a stretch of land barely bigger than his royal chamberpot. It can only end in blood, when one man or one group believes they have the right to rule over us all.”

He explained. Violet listened intently.

“Same old story. Change and revolution, beget’s change and revolution. In twenty years from now, I bet we shan’t even _recognise_ the rules and boundarys of old age that used to bind us. Society will change. Everything will channge. Evolve or die. Adapt. Or extinction. And believe me, I’m sure the toffee nosed, privately educated, imbeciles at the top of the food chain will put up a fight to protect their precious rights, which they see as rightfully and strictly their own, that are denied to the rest of us. Unions and Class war, this is the future for england.”

Seth growled. Clearly this was something he was passionate about.

“Now I know you’re not talking about the weather..” Violet quipped.

Crawley chuckled across to her.

“Things will change. Miss Sterling. Things closer to you, than your _sweet pretty_ little head can possibly _imagine_ …”

He grinned. Before he leered across to James. Who met his eyes, before he too looked out of the window. Not saying a word in response.

“This is clearly something you feel very strongly about…” Violet added.

“Indeed.”

Crawley spoke, now staring out of the window.

“Possibly because I can’t stomach the thought of ever being slave to one business man, and paltry wages all my life.”

“I agree wth you.” Violet spoke up.

James looked at her then.

“Surely you cannot take side with that?”

He asked her, seemingly offended by such affrontery.

“I am afraid, Sir, I am _perfectly_ at my leisure and liberty to agree.”

She held out. Chin high, eyes fiery.

“Whatever for? You have a comfortable home, a loving family, and a job. More than most debutantes could boast of. You should count yourself lucky.” He sniffed.

Violet tilted her head.

She bristled at such predictions from him. Especically, as it was _him_ they were spouting from.

“You’re right. I do have a home. Which I know is more than what some can boast. But it is by no means _comfortable_ as you so claim. We have one maid, and a cook. Of whom we can scarcely afford.

I get up at sfive o’clock every morning to help prepare breakfast, I work for three solid hours, cleaning and cooking along with the staff for my family because we cannot afford more help, then I go and I change for work at eight.Which means a ten hour day, mostly on my feet in painful heels and a suffocating corset.

I take notes, I visit clients, I kep the books, update customer directories. I do all the bothersome little menial tasks that my father cannot be bothered to, so he hands to me, or to his secretary. All the while, every minute of the day, men spew out inappropriate comments about me, behind my back, or to my face.

Then, at six o’clock, I go home, working an extra three hours more than I should. To go and stand on my feet for another two hours, preparing dinner with cook. I clean, I wash up, I help with laundry and cleaning our home. Only to get shouted at and demeaned by my mother and father for not attaining a husband. But no man ever looks _twice_ at me.”

At this, she chuckled drily.

“…The uncommon, _plainly average,_ looking female who insults everyone by just working her fingers to the bone. I do not have a _comfortable life_ , Mr Beaumont. I have a _hard working life_. But more importantly have a life of substance. I don’t sit around emroidering all day, discussing dresses and frippery, and sipping tea, like other society girls you know. I _work_ , and I like it that way. My family have never given me any inclination that I am appreciated for all I do. I am put down and shamed every minute of every day for remaining unwed, and more so since the recent event’s that surpassed between you and I.

And I am barely holding onto the job I love by the skin of my teeth, out of nothing but wanting to matter, and to have my own independence, and not to cower to the whim of some husband. So don’t _dare_ sit there and think for _one_ second, that I enjoy a life of superficial idleness, Mr Beaumont. Trust me when I say I work harder than any man you know, and all I get in return for that, at the end of the day, is the scraps left over from male colleagues wages – if I am lucky, and all I am left with is the knowledge that I will never please anyone. _No matter what I do_.” She ranted.

She stopped when she realised she was snarling, instead of speaking.

James looked empathetic. He swallowed before he spoke, at last. Crawley watching her with obvious interest from across the coach.

“I had no idea…”

He began. Shaking his head.

Violet looked at him poignantly.

“I’m aware of that.”

“You father said he was sending you here because you were the best for the job…”

“Then he’s lying. Because the very reason I am sat here in this coach, James, is because I didn’t agree to accept you, and wear your engagement ring on my finger, to become the future Mrs Violet Beaumont.”

He was unuable to say anything to that. It struck him how much she had to endure. The abuse, the ridicule. And all she wanted to do that everyone deemed disgusting?

She just wanted to make a _life_ of independence for herself away from her own family, whom hated her and her actions. He can't imagine the strain of living under such scrutiny. 

“Why don’t you, apply for another job?” He asks in a hush.

“You think that hasn’t occured to me. Who would have me? I’d be laughed out of any self respecting office faster than you could say bob’s your uncle. I should know. I’ve tried. One company actually had the audacity to tear up my application in front of my very own eyes.”

She enlightened, staring at the snow out of the window.

He knew in that moment. That Violet Sterling was a trapped woman. A caged song bird. Longing to fly free. 

His heart hurt to hear that. The mans world of commerce, was indeed, a cruel thing. How could he have been so blind to it, all this time? He was beginning to see Violet in a new light, as he had never done before.

She wasn’t arrogant, or overconfident in herself. She was the opposite of all those things. She was frail and breakable, and at the pain in her eyes, it was evident she would not let herself reach her breaking point. Violet Sterling was a force unto herself, to be reckoned with. And any man who dared try to defeat her, would fall short in the face of her stoic bravery. That much he knew.

“You are a remarkable woman, Violet. Though, I know the situation between you and me, has been… traumatic. You must know, even with your rejection. I still could not find it possible to _think ill_ of you.”

“That makes one of us, Mr Beaumont.” She answered.

He frowned in confusion.

“It didn’t satisfy me to hurt your wishes, and your… offer, to me. It caused me grief, to do so. Despite what it may have seemed. I was governed to do as such, by an entirely unrelated purpose…”

“Such as?” He asked.

She opened her mouth. Not wanting to reply. But it was Crawley who cut her off.

“Hate to interupt the heart to heart, Sterling. But I think we’ve arrived…” He smiled, wickedly.

Violet turned to look out of the window. And there, out of the fog of the flurries of snow. She could see the impressive gothic mansion loom out of the mist, leering over the frozen landscape. They passed under the wrought iron gate which read allerdale hall. Seeing the dark red clay, bubbling and bleeding up through the earth. Dusted with the settling brush of snow.

“Allerdale Hall.”

Violet remarked quietly, as they lumbered up the drive.

She looked up at the house as they drew close. More specifically, as they did. Movement on the second floor, drive facing windows caught her eye. And it was _him_.

The man who’d haunted her dream earlier. She instantly recognised the stark snowy skin, the handsome jaw, those burning eyes, the raven coloured curling hair. Violet gasped, watching him turn away from the window. Fading into the dark of the house. And a whisper, dark and menacing, crawled into her head. She blanched, pale, swallowing in fear as terror prickled, all over her body, like hot needles stabbing her blood.

_‘Beware of Crimson peak. Sweet Thing._

_Here is where the Monsters prowl_.’

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spooky? Not good? Weird? Let me know what you thought...I am intrigued.


	5. Filthy Tempered Men and Butterflies

  

 

 

~

 

 

Somehow, she is not quite sure just _exactly how_ , but somehow Violet manages to wrench her eyes away from the second floor window, high, towering above them. When the coach lumbers to an ungraceful creaking stop. Lurching from side to side in the harsh winds that buffeted them. She looks across to the grand arch of the sweeping double gothic doors that sat in the middle of the house. To see another man, one she faintly recognises, this time. It was Mr Forger, wrapped up tight in a long high collared coat from the cold. A knitted scarf knotted about his neck, keeping the heat in as he shivered against the cold. His hat was pulled down low over his face, dusted with snow as he tried to shelter from the unforgiving icy grip of the treacherous weather.

James opened the door for her, allowing her to be the first one out, she brushed past, and plunged her body down into the harsh elements. The wind whipped cruelly about her skirts, and lashed against her body. She She kept her head down, stumbling forwards until she got to Mr Forger in the alcove of the building, into the shelter of the front doorstep.

“Mr Forger, sorry for any delay on our behalf. The weather was horrific…”

She shouted over the howling winds, that chased them all, ripping after them like a ravenous pack of bloodhounds. Mr Forger almost looked amused by her comment, Replying with chattering teeth.

“There’s no need to bare an explanation, Miss Sterling.”

Forger yelled back, leaning close just to be heard. The wind snatching away their voices. Snow pelted Violet’s back, slipping under her collar. Making her tremble. She watched as Mr Forger reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of jangling, rusting, wrought iron keys from his coat pocket.

“Shall we proceed?” He asks.

Violet flickered one last unsure gaze up to the house, gulping. She didn’t like the way she felt when she looked upon it. She felt, afraid certainly. But it was more than just that. She felt… like they were not _the only_ people here. She wished it was a less disturbing feeling.

“Indeed.”

She shouted back. Sensing that the crunch of footfalls in the snow behind her, was Messrs Crawley, Beaumont, Tibbett and Bowditch joining her, huddling around the door. Watching as Forger’s shaking hands kept slipping and missing the keyhole.

“Get on with it Forger, lest we all _freeze_ to death..”

Bowditch snapped nastily, barely heard above the clashing wind which battered them all about. But they all beard him nonetheless, his lips pulled into an ugly snarl that showed off his twisted, yellow teeth.

Forger said naught, But Violet turned and gave him a look that could have rivalled the icy frost and snow they were surrounded by. She would not stand for rudeness, especially not from the snarking likes of him.

“Now whose being _hysterical_ , Mr Bowditch?” She asks with an icy snap to her voice.

He glared back at the woman. Whose own harsh glare reminded him that she was his _direct_ superior. And that he ought keep to her good side.

“Please do continue, Mr Forger.”

She snarls. Not facing to whom she spoke, she still, despite the whipping wind and lashes of snow, directed her best acidic glare to Mr Bowditch. The beastly rat of a man.

She turned away when he sheepishly diverted his eyes, face scorned with hatred, and mouth set in a stony line, Shivering pathetically under his wool coat. Causing Beaumont to look upon the man too, smiling in mirth at his misfortune. Violet was never to be contested nor grated against.

“What was it you said about hysterical females? Mr Bowditch?” Beaumont asks. “Because as I recall it, it was something along the lines of us not needing any…” Beaumont sarrced.

“ _Shut it, Beaumont_. Atleast I am here on my own credit, for my own job, and not because my _daddy_ ordered me too.” He snarls back in snippy defence.

Beaumont turns to face him at that, towering over the man, with the beginnings of fury set deep in his cold icy blue eyes.

“If you would like to see an example of a hysterical, silly willed, nonsensical female, Mr Bowditch. May I suggest you take a glance into the looking glass…” Beaumont sneered.

Bowditch snarled at that.

“Gentlemen.”

Violet snapped, with little patience as to the duelling pair of them, who turned to face her, just as Forger slotted the key into the lock, and twisted. Feeling the gyrating twist of the lock, unlatching, and then shoving the door, hard, inwards.

Everyone began to move inside, gladly escaping from the element’s. Before something stopped them. A cloud, and more importantly, a black buzzing cloud, fluttering and humming, burst out wards from inside the house, swarming over their heads. Tangling in their hair, slapping against their faces. Violet screamed and shielded her face from the black insects that tore across them all in waves. Only then did she see it was a large swarm of black moths, shrieking across them all, being batted away by the winds.

When the last insects left, everyone straightened, and warily looked across to the door. As the last few straggled moths bled out of the place.

“That was _unexpected_.” Forger offered.

“Did the recent surveyor mention they had a…. _insect_ infestation?” He asked Violet.

She shakily shook her head.

“No. Nothing of the sort.” She offered. “I, _myself_ , personally checked over Mr Palmer’s notes, and nothing was mentioned of an insect incursion.” Violet added.

“Let’s go in, _for heavens sake_. I’m not _freezing to death_ on this doorstep.”

Bowditch insisted shoving past them all. Ploughing through the men and woman, worming his way inside the house. The man held no polite decorum, _whatsoever_ , Violet decided. 

His stumbling through them all, managed to dislodge Violet from her feet, causing her to stumble, and with unforgiving ice and snow underfoot, she slipped, unable to steady herself, liable to topple over, were it not for the male hand which slung round the back of her waist, holding her sturdy. Before she can realise it, she grabs her fingers into the nearest thing, which happened to be James’s jacket shoulders, pressing them flush, chest to chest, her legs pressing into his. Her head tilts back, one curl of her dark hair tangling in her eyes. From up close, Violet is speechless by the way his handsome beauty causes her to lose her breath all in under a second. Her breath leaves her mouth in a shaky gush, twirling u white into the air between them, as she feels his cool hand, brush up against her cheek, and his eyes dislodge from hers, pulling something out of her hair. She blushes and looks down, as he retrieves a dead black moth from her hair that he had not realised had been stuck there. They both watch as he pulls it away, dropping it into the swirling winds about them. She swallows, dislodging herself from the bubble of heat and intimacy that had wrapped them both up, moment’s previously.

“We had better go inside..”

Violet dismissed, pulling herself away. Tears building, burning her eyes.

He stood, watching her walk away for a second. Unable to believe how _, right_ , it felt to have her in her arms. Pressed close to his chest.

He looked across, to see Mr Tibbett still stood outside, adjusting his collar. Before he looked across to the man, whom was pining after Violet.

“That woman, James, is not as indestructible as she appears. For all her strong ways, she seems to soften, quite rarely for her, towards you.” He added softly.

“While that may be.” He snapped suddenly.

“I am engaged to someone else. Miss Mary jade Seymour, a beautiful girl. She is, very pleasing. Blonde hair, blue eyes, every man’s fair dream. And she has 10,000 a year. And didn’t _reject_ my offer of marriage.” He sullenly admitted.

“But she is not Violet, is she?” Tibbett added.

Beaumont met his eyes at that.

“I don’t have care for what you are trying to insinuate, Tibbett.” He warned.

“I’m not insinuating anything sir. I don’t have to. I can see the attraction between you, plain as day. As clear as I see you.”

“Then you must be _blind_.” James offered stonily.

“Now that, is cold. James. Even for a man like you.”

Tibbett ushered in soft disapproval. Which really made James feel like a cad, for the usually polite likes of Tibbett to find disappointment in him. Noting that it didn’t sound like something the usually genial man would say. It sounded like something that would crawl it’s obscene way out of Beaumont Seniors mouth.

James swallowed, before he too followed her inside. Not saying another thing. But his shy, ashamed movements were screaming with indignity for his actions and words. His head bowed. Not facing up to his own, self fed lies.

She picked her way across the frost and snow, and came to the large arch of the front door. Walking swiftly inside, stepping onto the musty wood of the floorboards. Feeling them creak under her feet. She wandered slowly inside, pulling off her gloves, and twisting them both in her hands. Coming to the gaggle of men inside. Bowditch, Forger and Crawley, stood staring up at the impressive Gothic beauty of the place.

Violet walked ahead slowly, drawing deeper into the house than the men had. Her head craned high. Ceiling bound. The house would have been breath-taking in it’s hay day. And even now, in disrepair, it still was. Her eyeline was led first across the creaking floorboards, all of which were stained from age and decay. Splattered with patches of rot and water damage. Mingled with reddish streaks of clay, which looked eerily like blood, of which didn’t surprise her. She was just a little uneased by how it did resemble blood itself. She had read file after file on this house. It was built on red clay mines, which was how the late master had made his money. And engineer, who designed a machine to gather the stuff up from the earth. Seemingly though, in a most odd fashion, clay ran down the walls, and gathered, dripping from patches of the ceiling. Like the house was injured, being bled to death right before her very eyes. Her eyes lead to the cold, dead fireplace far in front of them, piled with grey ash. But before that, there was a large circular patch of floorboards, marked with elements of weathered decay. Possibly because of the snow, which leaked into the house, piling onto the floor, rotting the wood of the place from the gaping hole high up in the ceiling. Her eyeline was led up the grand staircase, past the peeling and, slashed wallpaper, showing the bare bleeding walls beneath it, up the rickety and splintered remains of the steps, to the landing, which, she imagines had previously been strung with portraits and paintings. But now, the square faded marks that sat there, told her this house had been either robbed, or cleaned of all the precious and expensive items it once held, proudly boasting of.

The once pristine staircase banisters, like the rest of the house, which had been made from a deep, dark mahogany wood, had been battered by some unknown force, all that remained were a rare few, many stubs of splintered wood now sat in their place. Everywhere she looked, the house was drab, peeling and rotting. The walls that didn’t drip with blood red clay, were decayed and decomposing, like festering flesh crackling and ripping away from the walls, like skin would peel from a putrefying skeleton.

What struck her most deeply, however. Was how the house, felt. To be inside it made her skin crawl. Looking at how much the place was dying around her. How it was suffering, and yet it felt like it had never been more alive. It felt like the house was breathing, pulling and tugging, expanding and slimming, like a ribcage would tighten and release with breath. That was what this house appeared to do. The old manor creaked, and groaned as it breathed and groaned with the sinful black spirit that sustained it. It wasn’t just walls, floors and ceilings, made of wood and brick. It was a creature, an ugly, squalid creature that drew things in between it’s jaws and spat out the bones.

Allerdale Hall was alive. And she didn’t know if it was her vivid imagination, or the fact that shadows danced up its walls. Making the place flicker and flutter, but Violet was ready to sware now, to cross her heart, and hope to die, that this house had eyes. Because something was _watching_ down over them all. Preying on them.

Violet moved to unclip the bowler hat from her hair, moving it off her head, and holding it in her hands along with her gloves. Surveying over the eerie space. Before she turned and crossed back over to her colleagues.

“Right.”

She cleared her throat, first things first, they needed to get to work. They only had three days scheduled here. They were all staying in Marbleton, which was fifteen miles away, the coach they hired would take them here and back each day until their train back home in four days time. And she did not come all this way to prove those who wanted her so badly to fail, wrong. She would do this job well, even if it _killed_ her.

“Well. I think we should try and remember why we are here. Let’s not pay attentions to the puerile ghost stories that are told of this place. It is most likely to be false, or some persons horrific desire to play a prank on everyone. I should like you to remember, that we are here to do our jobs, like sensible adults. I wish for everyone to carry out their tasks with the decorum and decency that Sterling, Forger & Beaumont, Estate Management & Company expects you to showcase. I think it would be best if we split up into small groups, there are six of us. And three floors, that is two people to each, to survey and log .”

“Do we get to pick whom we get to hold hands with, Miss Sterling?”

Bowditch sneered, mocking her, putting his hand up like an adolescent schoolchild would.

Violet nearly ignored him, but sighed, glaring at the man.

“For that impertinent remark, Mr Bowditch, maybe you’d be so kind as to go outside and help unload some of our work luggage with the coach drivers?” Violet spoke, but it sounded like an order.

Mr Bowditch’s face turned to thunder at that.

“You think I’m going to stand being _bossed_ and ordered about by some _pathetic woman_ for the duration of this trip? Then, Sterling, you are sorely mistaken.” He growled.

“That’s _Miss_ Sterling, to you, Bowditch. And need I remind you of just exactly whom your direct superior is? Because I think you’ll find, it _is me._ As abhorrent as you may find it. Deal with it. And Unless you want me to have a serious word with my boss, about giving you a severe attitude adjustment, and beating some manners into that insensitive head of yours, then so help me, be of use, or shut that poisonous mouth of yours unless you begin to learn how to be helpful…” She snarled.

“You are a stalwart little _bitch_ aren't you?”

Bowditch spat, leering towards her, snarling and spitting hatred at the tenacious obnoxious brat.

Tibbett and Forger braced Bowditch back from attacking Violet, whom looked wild, wisps of her dark hair framing her face, getting in her eyes, as she refused to back down. But Crawley and Beaumont stepped to her side, Crawley putting his body directly between her and Bowditch, glaring foul murder at the man, James leaning close to her side. Doing the same.

“Mr Bowditch, that woman is your boss. How _dare_ you show her such dishonour and insult. She’s is trying to do her job.”

Tibbett shouted gently to the man. Bracing him back as he squirmed o reach forward and hurt her.

Violet wasn’t scared. She met his accusations with a strong chin. Her chest pumping full of rage and anger, her hands clenched. Eyes wild and bright.

“She shouldn’t even _have_ a job. Doesn’t she know a woman’s place is under a man. Taking orders. Having children and cooking meals. Obedient Submission of the weaker sex. That is all she’ll ever be good for. Anything else is a waste of her useless time. But she can’t get it into her head that she will never be of use to anyone!” He roared.

That did it.

Violet tore herself away, everyone watched her go, snatching her body out of the conflict, gathering her skirts and walking away, fists clenched in rage.

“That’s it!” He continued shouting, roaring after her retreating figure.

“Leave _her_ alone.”

Crawley seethed. Voice deadly, eyes looking ready to murder him on the spot where he stood. Claiming Violets innocence. As if he were protecting her from violence. Bowditch continued to scream.

“Run away, turn your back like the pitiful coward, you are, Violet Sterling. Put your back to your pitiful problems like the weakling you are! You’ll never amount to anything. You’ll die an old maid refusing every man who ever dared try and love you. Because you are a cold hearted disaster.”

Tears began streaming down her face in anger as she walking down the nearest corridor that branched off to god only knows where. She walked and walked until she felt her breathing return to it’s normal patterns. Bracing her back against the wall. Admiring the dark of the abandoned hallways she had gone down. The wallpaper here too, was peeling, the floorboards rotted and groaned under her feet. There was a long run of a purple rug stretched out to the end of the hallway before her. Reaching to the wall and the window at the end. Seeing there were three doors lined to the wall opposite her.

She let her breath calm, and her fury drain from her system. As ardent curiosity began to take it’s place. She walked forwards slowly, seeing that the door was ajar. So she pushed it open. Peering inside, she was surprised to find that the room was furnished. It boasted of a neat little four poster bed, with a white canopy, now turned grey with the dust. And the sheets still were rumpled on the mattress, as if someone had just this second, rolled out of bed. At the foot of the bed, stood a large leather trunk, fastened shut. And adjacent to this, stood a neat little vanity table, with a dusty mirror, tilted to slant towards whomever used to sit in the little chair next to it. There were dusty glass bottles or perfume, and cosmetic compacts laden on the grubby surface, undisturbed. She walked towards it, looking out, seeing the storm raging away outside, the winds howling growing louder and louder, the snow pelting the house like artillery. Outside, the blizzard raged and snarled, but here, inside, she felt a little safer.

She looked down over all the little bottles and beauty products. Obviously knowing that this room had belonged to a woman. Her fingers fondly brushed over the edge of the small table. Seeing the hairpins, and jewellery tangled up in a silver knot. Whomever left it there must have loved their belongings and items of personal preference. It was as if they had been forced to run away, and never turn back for their things. She didn’t know if it was sad, or whether it was something that she should be terrified of.

A movement fluttering near the window caught her eye. She looked up, seeing a flash of amber. And that was when she saw it was a butterfly.

Orange with black tipped wings, a monarch butterfly. She’d read enough nature books to know such a species when she saw one. It was smacking against the class, making a small blinking sound as it thudded against the ice cold glass. She crossed past beyond the small table, over to the window, drawing back the sheer white curtain. Unveiling the distressed insect. Watching as it danced on the air, at being disturbed, it fluttered a circle, rounding her back, ducking under her arm, and coming back to the window, yearning to be outside.

“If you go out in those bitter icy winds, you’ll _die_..”

Violet pointed out softly. Before her rational mind told her she was _talking_ to a _butterfly_. She watched it flutter from the window once more, and settle on her hand where she held the curtain. Calmly resting on her palm, fluttering its wings slower now. As if it was listening to what she had to say.

“Then again I suppose a beautiful thing like you doesn’t deserve to be caged…”

She supposed aloud, lifting the catch on the window, looking at the vibrant butterfly for a second, before she eased the window outwards, holding tight as the wind threatened to slap back into the brick of the house, breaking the glass.

She watched as the butterlfy flew to it’s freedom. Swirling away on the air, coming to the unpleasant cold outside, and there was a second when it wavered in the air, before the brute force of the wind snatched it away. She watched out of the window for a second, before shutting the window, as a gale of wind set a flurry of snow to whirl into the room, the rancourous cold making her arm turn to ice. She latches the window shut, hearing the wind rage outside again, once more.

She crossed back to the vanity, lovingly skimming her fingers down the oval shape of the glass mirror. Seeing that the move coated her fingers in grey dust. She looked into it for a second. And when she did, her stomach dropped to her feet. In the reflection she could see _that man_ again. The one who fronted her nightmare. Except he was not drenched in blood this time. He was in a white shirt, the collar folded high, and a black waistcoat. His black hair, reaching his neck, pushed back on his head. And instead of looking, manic, or frenzied, he looked, dare she say it _, kind._ Almost. He was just stood, watching her, his handsome face pulled into a genteel smile. His burning blue eyes softened to stare lovingly at her.

She gasped, whipping up and turning around to where he stood behind her.

To see that he’d _gone_.

Her brow tugged down in confusion. She’d seen him. Plain as day, plain as the sun in the sky. And now he wasn’t there.

She walked over to the patch of wall by the door, the bed immediately to her right. She could see that there was a framed photograph on the wall. When she peered closer she could see that it was of the house, with a blurred picture of a man and woman stood on the front porch. It was a little bleached from the light of the sun which it faced from being opposite the window. She squinted, to better try and see whom the man and woman were. But then she felt something eerie overtake her again. It was as if she felt a man’s touch. Cool fingers brushed against the sensitive skin of her neck, toying with a curled wisp of her dark hair, stroking her skin in a manner that was intimate and thrilling. She could almost feel the weight of someone's breath on the back of her neck, the tip of their nose skimming over the side of her throat, as they leaned close. Her eyes fluttered shut, just for a second, no one had ever touched her so informally, gently gliding past her skin with passion, such as this.

Thomas couldn't _resist her_. Seeing the beautiful swan like, pale neck of hers from behind. He simply had, to touch her. Looping his fingers over a seductive soft curl of her hair. Inciting lust in his cold veins as her notes of rose perfume drew him further and further in. The scorch of her warm skin nearly burned his fingers. He hadn't felt warmth in _so long_. 

It made her skin thrash.

She snapped her head round behind her, twisting her head to the side. To see nothing but the empty room behind her.

Something was trying to spook her. To make her afraid.

She darted out of the room. Pulling the door closed behind her. When she turned about again, she could see that Me Beaumont was waiting for her at the end of the corridor. His face pulled down, weighted in concern for her.

“Violet, are you alright?” He called down to her.

She left the room, walking down the narrow creaking hallway, over the whine of the floorboards to come back to him.

“I am fine Thankyou. I believe that some of the rooms may still have furnishings in them. One down this hall was not cleared.”

She told him. Awkwardly rubbing her one hand against the other, as per her nervous habit.

“Really? Palmer did not mention this in any of his notes…” James frowned.

“I read them thoroughly, there was no mention of such a thing.” He stated plainly.

She smiled weakly. “I did too. I agree, there was no mention.” She admitted.

“How is Bowditch now?”

She asked, though she’d very much have liked to planted her heeled foot on his toes, and ploughed her fist into the middle of his sneering face.

“He has a filthy temper. But, he went to go and help unload as per your suggestion.” James told her.

“Is everyone else doing their surveying?”

She asked, walking out ahead of him. Crossing past the pile of snow that swayed gently down from the gaping ceiling.

“Yes. I instructed Crawley and Forger to start on the second floor, you and I will begin to the west of the house, and they shall take the east.” He informed her.

She nodded, coming to the creaking staircase.

“Forger told us the stairs were significantly weakened but they should be able to take our weight, so long as we proceed slowly...” He informed her.

“How _comforting_.” Violet remarked drily.

She held her black skirts aloft, and began gingerly picking her way up the stairs. With James just behind her, making sure she didn’t fall. When she got halfway up, she could see Forger and Crawley, Forger examining the rotten floorboards, and Crawley was inspecting the supporting wall of the manor above him.

They had not even reached halfway up, when there came a massive shrieking sound from above them, and a slow low whistling sound, like something being slowly fed down. She could hear metal whine and creak. 

She craned her head towards the ceiling, only just in time to hear Crawley shout in a deafening tone.

“WATCH IT! LOOK OUT!”

and before she could register, James had leapt into her, pushing her to the steps below, but no so fast as the avoid her gaining an injury. Hearing an almighty crash as the heavy metal chandelier ploughed through the wood, with a hefty smash, and splinters following it. Violet felt a searing pain as the heavy weight of the chandelier smacked across her head, sending her sprawling to the uneven steps. Flat out. and then there was darkness as she slipped away into unconsciousness.

Everything turned fuzzy. It sounded like she was hearing the world from underwater. It was all muffled and distorted.

She felt sharp cold fingers jabbing into her arms, pulling her up, yanking her hair out of her face. Soothing her from the spearing pain where she had been bashed both on the front by th falling chandelier, and the back of her head by the wooden steps she had been thrown too. She could feel something warm trickling down her eye, and cool breath brushing across her face.

Though it hurt, she levered her eyes open a tiny fraction. Causing needles of white, fresh hot pain to stab into her eyesight. And she could see two twin blue discs. She blinked her eyes, shut, and then open. The discs separated, and she realised she was staring into someone's eyes as they leaned close over her. James, he had blue eyes. It must have been James.

“James?..”

She groaned, in a whimpering rasp.

She heard him shush her comfortingly, telling her to not speak and to keep quiet. Telling her softly that it was ok, that she was alright.

She opened her eyes a little wider. But she couldn’t spare the energy, nor consciousness to be frightened.

The man staring down at her, certainly had blue eyes. But his hair was black. The same man who had been in her nightmares, who she had seen not moment’s ago, the man who she dreamed would kill her. And here we was saving her.

“You’re not James. Who are you?”

Violet rasped before she sunk away.

Thomas watched her drift away, her male friends could not see him. But she could. She had seen him from the moment she stepped foot in this house.

He looked down at her, at the blood leaking from her forehead. The skin by her eye already beginning to bruise.

“I’m nobody.”

He assures her, wanting to drift off as the men shoved the chandelier away to tend to her. Thomas heard them shouting her name.

“Violet..”

He spoke lovingly, testing it aloud. Stroking an errant finger, lovingly, down the supple silk of her cheek. Again. Feeling the intoxicating warmth and silk of her skin. He was quickly becoming evermore enchanted by this woman. 

 

“Sweet Violet.”

 

~

 

 

 

 


	6. Kindred Spirits, Houses, and Traps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladies, and Gentlemen (If there are any?) I give you, Sir Thomas Sharpe. Enjoy Him.

 

 

James could only watch on in horror, as the huge heavy mass of the metal chandelier ploughed from the ceiling, leaving him barely a second to react. He did the only thing he could think to do. His heart lurched horrifically in his chest, but he threw himself into Violet, knocking her out of the way. But not in time to avoid the huge weight of it striking her across the head in a loud horrible clunking sound. And when she landed on the steps, she landed hard. Her body jolting, His mouth agape as he sprang up, fighting to urgently tend to her. At the sight of blood leaking down from her eye, his body plummets, though he stayed perfectly still.

“Violet?”

He yells. Kicking the chandelier out of his way, tearing into it with his hands, desperate to move it. He heard footsteps clatter down from above him, as Forger and Crawley ran down to offer their help.

James got to her, and terror underlined his gut as he slid an arm under her, trying to hoist her up, finding she was limp and sagging in his arms. Though he held her across the back of her waist, her arms were lifeless, and her head lolled far back, her pale neck stretching out, before he reeled her lifeless form close to his body, tugging her long wisps of dark hair out of her face. Tangling in the wet blood from the injury weeping by her right eye. The cut ran jagged from her eyebrow, finishing at her cheekbone. The blood standing stark on her pale colourless face. _Her beautiful colourless face._

_“Violet?”_

He whispers again. His hand going back now, brushing gently across her forehead. And _thank god_ , he could hear her mumbling something as she tried to open her eyes, frowning and wincing in pain as she did. Beginning to stir.

“ _James?”_ She asked.

He nodded, he choked down his fear, and gasped out to her in a nod.

“ _Yes_. Violet. _It’s me_ , it’s _James_ , I’m _here_ …”

He spoke, leaning closer, so close that she could feel his breath on her face. As he cradled her face in his hands. Warm and smooth hands, gently cupping her face in a strictly intimate way. As if he were afraid one touch would break her.

Then she winced, frowning, still struggling to open her eyes a fraction.

“You’re _not_ James. _Who are you?”_

She asks in a bemused whisper.

James frowned. Leaning closer over her, trying to let her see it was him. He heard horrific things similar to this. People getting hit over the head, and being forgetful about things that should have been normal to then.

Little did James know that someone was watching down over them, behind his shoulder as he tended carefully to the woman.

“Violet _. It’s me_.” He insisted.

“It’s James Beaumont we’re…. _friends_. We’re at Allerdale Hall. _Remember?_ ” He asks.

She was already gone in his arms. Prostrated across the rotting stairs. Eyes shut, and her breathing so shallow it nearly terrified him.

“James. We need to go and find somewhere to lie her down.”

Forger insists. It was the first time James raised his head and regarded Forger and Crawley just steps up above him.

“Truly. She looks _very_ ill.”

Crawley pointed out. Not taking his eyes off the blood on her pale face. His darker than dark eyes glittering. That was before Forger turned about, and caught sight of a half open bedroom door, just down the landing, the closest one to where they all now stood on the stairs. Peering through, he could see the room had not been stripped of furniture. It still boasted of a dark wooden canopied bed. With pillows and quilts, and dark velvet curtains across each window.

“There, look. There is a bed. She needs to be led down, and whilst she rests, we can try and send for a doctor.”

“You’ll need a saint of a doctor to make it out _here, in this_..”

Crawley points out, as they could all hear, even from inside, the wind and snow battering the house all about them. Shaking the roof tiles, clawing at the brick, trying its best cruel cold way to get in.

James heaved the petite frame of Violet into his arms, and strode up the rest of the stairs with her wilting body gathered tight to his chest, her hair brushing against his jacket, and her warm form flopping into his chest as he carried her as if she weighed no more than a dried leaf.

Crawley stayed on the stairs, idly kicking at the solid mass of the chandelier, glaring at it. Forger accompanied James up above stairs with Violet’s unconscious form. James laid her gently in the middle of the huge bed.

“I need to try and clean her face..” He muttered idly. Mostly to Forger, but partly to himself.

Stroking the hair back from her face. He then looked around the room. It still bore a wardrobe, a dresser, and more importantly, an en suite bathroom leading off from one side, with a sink and a lavatory. He wrenched open the wardrobe, and flitted through. There were still numerous gowns hung up in there. All gathering dust and smelling of must and mothballs. He found a white cotton one, and tore it into his hands, then proceeded to shred it. The found of the fabric shrieking as his brute hands made quick work of it. He destroyed it, and stormed to the sink, wetting the scraps of it, before going back to Violet, sitting himself down by her side, and mopping away the excess blood. Making sure it didn’t drip down from her lovely face, and ruin her dress.

He found her face was soon clean as he washed her wound. Seeing that when it wasn't bleeding, it was a long diagonal cut, which marred her perfectly ivory skin. But it didn’t make her any less beautiful. He swallowed, as his finger brushed down her cheek as he looked down at her.

James didn’t know that a pair of _burning_ blue eyes watched him do this from across the room, concealed in the shadows. _Glaring hells fury at him._ Chest swelling in envy. As this nameless man lovingly caressed her cheek.

“We should leave her to rest. It is just _a knock_ to the head, James. She’ll be alright in time.”

Forger assured, clapping a hand softly to his shoulder. Trying to drag him away as he walked out of the room.

James looked at her for as long as he dared, dragging his fingers softly down her cheek, before he stood and strode away. Pulling the creaking door shut after him.

“Why was there nothing in the notes about the dangerous solid chandelier being precariously suspended on rope that was old and fraying?”

James asked to Forger, his voice thunder, turning his anger over Violet’s injury outwards. Gesturing angrily to the metal light fitting that had mangled the stairs, and would have mangled his friend had he not been there.

“How much does that thing weigh?” James asked.

Forger’s eyes swept over to the stairs. Levelling out a guess.

“Just short of, a couple of hundred kilos, I reckon.” He offered.

“ _SO why_ , did a rope that has been holding the hundred kilo thing steady, for almost _ten years_ , now. Suddenly decide to break _the moment_ Violet and I stepped foot beneath it? _Hmm?_ ”

James asked. But he didn’t really require an answer.

The light left Forger’s eyes. Realisation took over.

“You’re saying it was _tampered_ with?”

Forger asked quietly.

James offered now answer, his gaze turned ceiling ward, looking across the huge rope that linked from the chandelier. It went up to the ceiling, but the end of it was tethered to the wall, just outside the room where they now stood. James strode angrily to the wall. Inspecting all over the mould ridden, damp, slashed wallpaper. He turned back to look at the rope of the light fixture one last time, it was fixed to the ceiling directly above it. But the end of it lay over here, bracketed to a fixture on the wall.

Something awful struck his bloodstream like fiery ice, when he found that the rope, had been _severed clean. Not worn away. Not snapped._

_A clean, neat cut._

But by whom? And for what ulterior purpose?

“Shall we get on with our surveying? We have the west wing to get done before nightfall.”

He asked in a quiet voice, to Forger. Who nodded. Both men moved back down the landing, towards the west wing of the house, to do their work. Crawley watched them go. Before he gave one last, glaring a snarl at the chandelier, kicking it brutally hard before he followed after his colleagues.

 

~

 

 

Violet groaned. Her body, stirring into the unfortunate affair that was her life, her every waking day. Her mouth was parched, her body sore and wincing. But she found her eyes felt like lead weights, and refused to open. And when she did open them, lighting strikes of pain and agony shot to her brain. Making her eyes sizzle with frazzle with white hot, searing pain.

Her head hurt.

Well. _That_ was putting it _mildly_.

It felt like someone had hacked her head off – having several cack handed attempts at so with a rusty axe – before slitting her temples open, and filling her head with angry bees, poison, and razors, giving it a good shake, and then placing it back atop her shoulders. She had never known an _evil_ _pain_ such as this.

All she could remember was someone shouted something to them, and blue eyes, shaking her awake, the rest was a blur of pain and blackness to her.

She levered her eyes open, moaning in pain again, her hands, which had previously been nestled across her front, resting on her middle, tucked against the black wool of her gown. Which now moved to her sides, feeling a butter soft mattress, sagging below her. Her eyes staring at the unfamiliar stretch of a white canopy above her. She frowned, her hand raising up to touch to the tender agony striking down the side of her face. She whimpered, wincing when she found the raw and sticky patch of what could only be blood matted to the side of her eye.

 _That would explain why my head feels like it’s rotting._ She thinks.

She groaned, shifting her feet, so she could finally sit up, and continue her job. The ache seemed to make her head swim and drown in pain as she sat up. Her fingers still to her wound, and her face pulled into a frown as she sat up, her hair mussed, and her neck warm from where she had been lain down for so long. She opened her eyes again, struggling to take in the foggy dark expanse of the room ahead of her, all she could see from here, was a window, which showed her a dark gale of snow twirling about, dancing on the night air. And before this, there was a scarlet armchair poised next to the window. With a pile of books next to it.

She groans once more as she makes it upright, one hand pressed to the warmed bed below her.

“You shouldn’t try to overexert yourself, Violet.”

Came a dry, smooth and deep voice from behind her. Echoing off the silence of the walls about her, making her body drop to her feet. And possibly below the bed to the floorboards underneath it. And then the floor below that. 

Her eyes blew wide. Terrified as she didn’t recognise the deep lull of that husky voice. _Except she did._ Not right away, but after a second or two, she remembers hearing it being purred that _she was next,_ in the horrific nightmare she had earlier, and the words that rang as a warning as they pulled up to the house.

People would call her ridiculous, mad, possibly even insane.

_Was she being haunted?_

She slowly turned, peering over her shoulder, her head screaming in agony in complaint to such movement, but she ignored it.

_Yes. Yes she was being haunted._

She thinks, because her eyes went instead to the figure of a very tall man, stood beside the other side of her bed.

Towering tall, looking down to her. From the murky moonlight which reached her window, she could see it made his skin glow like something otherworldly and ethereal. But this only enhanced the burning severity of his cerulean eyes. Which daggered right into her. piercing into her very soul, she believed. That ravens hair curled rakishly at his neck, and his handsome lips formed a stonily straight line. Still dressed in what she vaguely remembered from earlier. White shirt, waistcoat, breeches and boots.

Her chest pounds raggedly with panicked breath. And she knows with certainty that by the time she tears across to the door, or screamed. He could be upon her in a flash, so _neither_ was her only option. She was _helpless._

“Who are _you?_ ”

She asks, wetting her lips, trying not to tremble in fear, bolting to her feet, and placing her body in a direct line with his. The bed the only obstacle between them.

She isn’t sure why, but _something_ about this _man,_ or _whatever he was_ , made her not wanting or trusting to leave her back to him.

He seemed amused by this, those dreamy lips pulled into a smile.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

He leered.

She swallowed, edging closer to the door. Inch by inch.

“I am capable of suspending my belief..” She answered.

He chuckled to that.

“I know that much about you to know as such, Violet.” He offered.

She frowned, a little more panicked.

“Then pray, explain how you came to know _my name_..” She demands.

He edged closer this time. Moving slowly round from the other side of the bed, closer to her. She backed off as he advanced. Retreating. She was confused, and bewildered beyond belief.

But not to mention. _Intrigued._ He was _hypnotizing_ to watch. Here was a beautiful man, and no mistaking it for a single second. He was more handsome and refined than any she had seen in her life. He was intoxicatingly beautiful. So much so she had to take a breath to herself, at the stunning severity of his looks. 

“You should be resting.”

He points out. The gentle humour on his face having faded now.

“You were in my dreams.”

Violet blurts out before she can remember herself.

“I was?”

He asks. Looking curious and astounded by such a thing.

“You tried to _kill_ me. You killed all my friends…”

She offered, coming to the far end of the room, he was still advancing on her, and she as still trying to get as _far away_ from him as she was able.

“I _won’t_ harm you Violet. Nor your friends. I won’t harm _anyone_.”

“Than why did I dream of you tearing my neck open with a dagger, saying ‘ _you’re next’_ a-and, cooing a warning at me when we pulled up to the house. _I saw you._ Plain as day, through the window.”

She rambles, words spilling on and on out of her lips before she could stop them.

“I. Will. Not. Harm. You. Violet.”

He speaks gently and softly.

“You have _my word_ on it. The _last thing_ I want to do is harm you."

Her body was flattened against the wall now, and she still tried to shrink away from him further, hands pressed flat against the faded wallpaper. Her body trying to, _if it could_ , sink into the wall, through it, out the other side, if just to get away from him. Because he was close now, and just like before, a shaft of foggy moonlight highlighted his handsomeness like the way in which a bulb lit up a room. He was very close. _Mystifyingly close._   _Too close_ to be considered a proper respectable distance between a man and a woman. And he smiled gently at her.

Thomas was close enough now to feel the heat of her luxuriously soft skin radiate off her, and the inviting pull of her sweet rose perfume tugging him to her in a way he was helpless to resist.

She was _warm, soft, and gorgeous_.

And yet she was _frail_. _A human_. He could see, though she ploughed through her life with a pragmatic head atop her shoulders, underneath, she was frail. Like a rose, a rose blooming in the winters frost. It should destroy her, but she was too stubborn and fiery to let it.

Violet’s heaving chest caught his attention. He could hear her wonderfully living heart hammer madly away in her warm lively chest.

She recoiled, wincing as his long fingered pale hand, slowly reached up and untangled a lock of her dark chestnut hair which had become entangled in her lashes. She watched with trepidation as he pulled it away, brushing it back behind her ear. Looking at her face, _deep down_ into her own eyes like she was _Aphrodite_ herself. With calm love in his sinfully blue eyes.

She swallowed.

Violet felt, as his hands brushed her cheeks, gliding along her skin, that his hands were _ice_.

“How do I know you _won’t_ harm me?”

She asks in concern. Her voice no more than a whisper.

“I’m not a man who harms women. Anymore.” He insisted.

“The past tense in that remark _really_ doesn’t instil me with a sense of trust.” She spoke anxiously.

“I can do nothing but give you my word on the matter.” He spoke honestly.

“I’ll trust that on one condition…” She counters.

“That condition being?” He asks her.

“I need to know if you are a man who is liable to go  _back_ on his word…” She bartered.

This made him look deeper into her. His eyes holding her own for a long second.

“I am not.”

He smiles. Still looking at her in that calculating, and inquisitive way. The way that made her feel like she was the only woman he had ever seen. The only one he ever had eyes for.

She swallows. Gulping down her fear. He was still so close. She could feel the brush of his breath ghost cold across her lips, and the weight of his body leaning close to hers. She could feel the nearness radiate off him, onto her.

“Why are you _looking at me_ like that?”

She asks in confusion. He was looking at her like no one had ever done before. She had _never_ been looked at like this.

He was _worshipping_ her with his eyes.

Skimming over every detail of her limitlessly beautiful face. No man had _ever_ done as such to her. Examined her as if she were the living embodiment of perfection. She’d graced ball after ball, party after party. And men had taken one glance at her, and decided to find their dance partners and sweethearts elsewhere. Away from the bland likes of her boring grey eyes, and undetermined colour of her hair. They instead, fawned over women with finer figures, nicer smiles, bigger dowries, with sweet blue eyes, and flowing golden hair, the colour of wheat in the sun. No man had ever looked _twice_ at the bland paltry likes of her. Boring and ordinary, as dull-as-dishwater, plain old, Violet Sterling.

It was unsettling, she found, to have such desiring eyes sweep across her like this, in such a _intimate_ manner.

“Like what?” He asks.

“Like you’re… _adulating_ me..” She speaks slowly.

“I have eyes, do I not? _My eyes_ cannot help but be _drawn_ to such beautiful things..” He smiles.

She blinks at the soft poetic variation of such a flattering comment.

“I..” She stammers.

“ _What_ are you?”

She asks at last, through the curiosity and intrigue about him, which her brain was bursting with questions for to ask him.

“A Kindred spirit.” He answers.

 _Finally. A straight answer._ She thinks.

“A ghost?” She asks frowning.

He nods.

She wets her lips before she proceeds. Because if ghosts exists, then what else did? What other monsters lurked in the world, prowling the shadows without her consideration?

“Are- how come I _can see_ you?” She asks.

“Something which even I, have no answers for. Violet.”

He smiles, tilting his head to examine her further. By the slope of her lips, and the slant of her mesmerising eyes. She truly was a vision of beauty to his eyes. He hadn’t seen such innocent and pure beauty in a long _, long,_ time.

“You _touched_ me, I felt your hand. You’re _not_ …It _felt_ …” She begins, unable to finish.

She gasps as he gripped her wrist, gently, again, able to feel his skin. The muscles and bones in his arm, under his icy skin, and each of his fingers. And she watched as he lifts her hand and places her palm of her hand, to rest against the stark slope of his cheekbone. Cupping his face.

He was _all there,_ solid, skin, flesh and bone, _cold,_  alive, real, under her hand.

“It felt cold?” He asks her. Finishing her words. 

She nods.

“I lost the ability to stay warm years ago.”

He answers. And the scorch of her skin was _delicious_ to a man who'd lost all sense of warmth in his lonely life.  

She whips her hand away. Pressing it back to the cool wall behind her. Tears were starting to build in her eyes now. Her head was spinning, this was all so confusing.

“Lastly. _Who_ are you?” She questions.

“Are you always this interrogative?” He asked her now.

“When strange kindred spirits appear, where only I can see them, yes, I tend to be _a little_ on the _inquisitorial_ side of things…” She offered.

He smiled, amused.

“You must promise me, you will not scream. You will not tear from this room to your male friends sides once I tell you my name..” He demands.

“I shall try my best…” She promises.

“Thomas Sharpe.” He answers.

She swallowed. Her body was ice now, lined with shock.

“Thomas Sharpe is dead.” She whimpers.

He shook his head.

“He is not.” He offers.

“How can you be alive?”

She whimpers. Voice no more than a squeak.

“The reason I am still in this world, is stood crumbling around you and I, Violet.” He answers.

“The house?” She probes shakily.

Again, he nodded.

“While it lives, so do we. The punishment for my sins, stands eternal on this earth. So long as the house is here, it is my penance to be tied to it for as long as it, and my spirit remains. _Nothing_ , save for _one_ thing, can set me free from it.” He clarifies.

“What is it that frees you? Why can’t you free yourself?” She solicits.

“The same thing that rotted my previous life, is the same thing that killed me, and it is the same thing that keeps me here.” He told, like a gruesome riddle.

“Which is?”

Violet seeks.

“ _Love_.”

He answers simply.

“To be free, I must earn someone's love, and keep it. _Only then_ will I be bound for the world beyond this one. Or I will be given life again. It depends on whom I choose to love. Whom so ever redeems me.” He answers.

“A decrepit old house doesn’t offer much choice in terms of finding a sweetheart… I gather…” Violet enquires.

“It does not.” He answers her.

She swallows.

That was before her attention was turned to something he had said, as his words rolled over in her head. On repeat like a prayer, a chant.

‘While it lives, so do _we….'_

 _We_. We?

Something clicked in her head.

“You’re not the only spirit in this house, are you?” She asks.

His eyes turned cold, his lips sinking into a solid line. He looked fearful in that second.

“I promised you, that _I,_ would not harm you. I cannot vouch for your safety whilst _that other spirit_ inhabits this house..” He informs her.

Violet gulped.

“I think you and your friends are in great danger, staying here.” He answers.

“We are, leaving for the night. A carriage is taking us to an Inn near Marbleton.” She finished.

Thomas’s eyes sunk deeper into a look that resembled fear.

He shook his head.

“You need to go and find your friends. _Now._ ” He offered her.

"Someone in this house want's to do you harm."

He gripped her upper arms tight. Shaking his words into her. Her eyes blew wide, as she tore past him, and out of the room. He watched her go.

 

“Violet. Something terrible is about to befall you, and the others. You are all about to be _trapped_.”

 

 

~

 


	7. Ensnared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> little too short for my liking, but no less vital.

 

 

 

Violet tore herself away from Thomas. Skirting around him, throwing her body to the door, wrenching it open, and tearing down the landing. It made her head blur with pain, and her vision dance with hazy agony. But she ran on nonetheless.

Her feed thudded with jarring steps, jolting her body down the stairs. When she got to the bottom, she tore across the foyer. Her booted feet slapped and possibly splintered the rotten wooden floorboards. But on she ran, scrambling onwards, even when her boots caught on uneven lips from the buckling floorboards. The nagging pain by her eye and resting in her temples was positively _screaming_ now. But still she ignored it.

Something about the _air wasn’t right_ in this dark, dying old place. And a kindred spirit materialising out of nowhere to warn her that dangerous spirit’s resided in this house didn’t grant her any small shred of comfort.

It felt like there were eyes, _everywhere_. Embedded into the wallpaper. Roaming across her from the cracks in the walls, peering down from the nooks and crevices in the ceiling. And ears too, why did it feel like this house was listening to _her every move?_ Stalking her to find out what she was up to. Watching her keenly like a predator would it’s next victim. Licking it’s chops, as it was waiting greedily to get her alone and snap it’s jaws shut and devour her whole. It groaned as the house breathed around her, the wood whining and grumbling with each breath. Her rational and pragmatic mind told her it was the ferocious winds outside tormenting the old place. But to the more fearful side of her mind, it sounds like it was _panting_. Drawing in air, then expelling it. Shuddering and growing then shrinking and releasing as it moaned with life.

She tore across the hall, and came to the door. When she got there, she knew she wasn't a lady of great strength or force, but her senses were in overdrive, alert and scared. And in panic, people are capable of things _one can’t_ even imagine. As was she, surprised to find that with one forceful heave, she dragged the solid oak door inwards, a flurry of flakes and a gale of wind whipping at her, curling in from the door, lashing at her hair, pinning her skirts back behind her knees. She blinked into the cold, seeing it was dark outside now. Murky. A heavy chowder grey night sky which raged with wind and snow, like an icy, unforgiving tempest. This looked like the eye of a storm, to her mind. And here the house was. Isolated, undefended, forgotten, in the centre of it all.

She squints into the snow, before grabbing her skirts and running out into it. Plunging her body into the wild winds. Her booted feet crunching in the bleeding red snow, weeping up, sullying the fallen white flakes from the clay below in the mines. Instantly, she felt her hair pulled free from all its intricacy as it had once been twined elegantly into pins. But now the wind had ripped them free. As her unbound hair raged around her face, sticking to the drying blood by her eye, belting in a wispy sting against her skin. Her skirts too, were tormented with. Torn about in the gale as if the weather was trying to tear the very dress off her. She feels the cold, perhaps a little less than she probably should. The cold that froze her hands, and made her face ache with it’s stark arctic bitterness. She could see her breathe raggedly appear in front of her, as a white wisp. Carried away in this blizzard that seethed away, carving about her.

Perhaps the reason that she couldn’t truly allow herself to feel the icy bite of the weather on her bare skin. Was the fact that Thomas’s warning had proven to be, horribly, blood chillingly, breathtakingly right.

 

The two carriages had gone.

 

She doesn’t realise that people are behind her, until she feels someone yank firmly on her arm. And it was not the touch of a friend. It was an angry snatching, jarring move that could have wrenched her arm free of it’s very socket had they felt it deemed prudent enough. She didn’t even hear the crunch of his shoes on the snow. Nor how he angrily shouted her name. Over the winds, and the shock, and the still simmering pain in her head. She just didn’t.

She didn’t know James had irately twisted her arm back to pull her back to face him, until she comes face to face with him.

“ _WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING, VIOLET?”_

He shouts loudly over the winds. And because of his anger, he doesn’t take the time to peer past her to see that the two horse drawn coaches were not out front here, awaiting on them, like they should have been. Allerdale boasted of no stables. There were reports that they caved in years ago from shoddy building work. She had seen so in the photos Palmer gathered before he fell to his death. So there was no chance that the coaches, horses, and drivers were sheltering there. They had gone. And long since by the looks of things. There weren’t even tracks in the snow as evidence of their departure.

James was still snarling at her. His face set in thunder. His blonde curls being severely mussed and tossed by the winds. And though his body was defensive, curling a little against the bitter cold, he was shaking with _rage_ , not with coldness. He had heard someone clatter through the house, down the stairs, and when he went back to check the room where he left her, it was empty. He had never known such panic, nor shock as that. Then when he saw the front door open, he just about saw _red mist_ descend over his eyes.

He shook her, as if trying to rattle some sense into her head. She had been rendered unconscious. She should not have been up, and outside. Especially not in this torrent of evil weather. She must be mad. And she was making him deliriously so. His hand gripped her arm so tight, that her skin stung. But still he shook, and shouted. Trying to beat some sense into her – injured - head.

“THE COACHES _ARE GONE_.”

Is what she finally manages to yell back. Snatching her arm away from his grasp.

He frowned, before she stepped aside. Allowing him to see clearly the look of prevailing shock and realisation dawn over his face. He walked past her, his feet chomping down into the deep snow as he walked. Stumbling forwards, buffeted about by the winds. She watched him for a second as his eyes took in the blank, foggy grey horizon. Terrifyingly seeing, that there were, in fact as she so claimed, no carriages in sight. And their luggage was piled up against the alcove of the doorstep. That was almost the final nail in the coffin for their fate.

He storms back. A little calmer now. Grabbing her arm. Eyes cast downwards as he drags her back into the house. Throwing her body away, so she stumbled behind him when they get back inside, sheltered once more from the hungry winds that plucked and roared at them. He slams the door. Bracing both hands against it, head bowed, looking forwards. As she stands behind him. Her dark hair down by her shoulders speckled with flakes of snow, her skin icy cold to the touch, he imagines. And one hand holding the opposite elbow, as she watched him with innocent and fearful grey eyes. Her skin pale against the wound struck against her eye.

He panted in silence for a moment. Before he turned around to face her.

He didn’t say anything. Not a word. He didn’t need too. His face said it all. And she knew him well enough to know that he _truly didn’t_ know what to say. His minty blue eyes were searching, for an explanation, _for anything_. So long as it was something. Violet swore she could almost hear his brain ticking over with thought. The gears in his head whirring. But there was nothing to be done. This they _both_ knew. They both had a horrible premonition that they were being _entombed_ here. In the big, rotting, dying house by some unknown fateful hand.

But they both almost didn’t want to face up to that dreadful reality.

They turned at hearing footsteps clatter down the stairs. The treads of four of their colleagues marching – gently – down the stairs. Crawley. Forger. Bowditch. And Tibbett. All making their way towards the two, over by the front door.

“What on earth is the matter?”

Tibbet asked the two of them. He had heard Violet had suffered a injury from a falling chandelier.

Violet looked up, and came across Crawley. Whose brown eyes shone in confusion across to her. He frowned. She was _shaking_ too, and had snow tangled in her hair. He was wondering what on earth the two had discovered.

He stalked across to the forgotten and battered chaise by the fireplace opposite them, and grabbed a musty old blanket, he shook the best of the dust off. And walked back over, linking the blanket across Violet’s trembling shoulders. She thanked him with a small polite whisper. But she notices that he didn’t pull away, he pulled her _closer_ to him. Only by mere inches, but close enough so that the blanket around her brushes the jacket against his body. And he tilted her chin up with two long fingers, surveying with his dark, shining brown eyes, the wound near her eye.

She shrunk down in the blanket’s cocoon. The way his touch sent thrashes to rocket through her blood in a icy, and unpleasant manner, made her know she wasn’t sure why her body tried to arch away from him. Perhaps because she wasn't sure she _trusted_ him. 

“Now that’s a _nasty_ looking little scratch there… You should watch after your _lovely_ back better, Violet.”

He coos, as he smiles down at her. But his eyes were weighed down with something too heavy for that to be of an innocent proclamation.

Violet swallowed.

“Killer headache too. I feel like half my head’s _rotting_ away.” She parries back.

“Well, we can’t have that, can we… Let’s try and keep that pretty little head of yours firmly on those shoulders. _Ey?_ ”

He asks, or tells. She isn’t sure.

His fingers slide back from under her chin, slowly, dragging across her skin. Though his nails were short, she still felt them scrape gently at her neck. It made her shiver. And unpleasantly so.

Behind them all. Up high on the landing, one certain kindred spirit watched, blue eyes burning into the back of Crawley’s head. Another man. Dragging his filthy fingers across her skin. And _that man_ at that too. Who wasn’t worthy to _look_ at her, let alone _touch her_ as closely as he was. Thomas’s fingers clenched tight into the banister. His jaw tight as it clenched, his eyes narrowed into acidic slits, and he swore he felt his nails dig little crescents into the wood.

She just looked up at Crawley in a somewhat blank gaze. Blinking those sweet grey eyes up at him.

“Shows you what happens when a _woman_ is sent to do a man’s job.”

Bowditch muttered nastily under his breath. But enough so she could still hear him.

But when she looked across to Bowditch, to try and glare. She stopped herself short.

His shirt front was ruffled. As if it had been pulled and fisted at. And there was a rusty ring of dried blood crusted to his nose. And his thin sneering lips had a red welt to one corner, which was the result of a very slight break in the skin. She could see it was already beginning to swell too. _What had happened to him?_ She bit back her retort. She was used to doing that after all. She could take a harmless insult, from a harmless, poisonous little man with nothing better to do than knit pick at how she did her job.

It was also then she saw that Crawley’s knuckles were starting to flower with red and purple bruises. That piqued her interest. Her eyes switched back to the skeletal colleague who hated her very guts.

“I believe, Mr Bowditch, that we have far more pressing matter’s at hand, than the mere fact of my injury.”

“Such as?” Forger asked.

Violet swallowed.

“The coaches, have gone.”

“ _What?_ ”

Bowditch snapped almost immediately.

“I _don’t like_ repeating myself after I have spoken _so painfully plainly_ , Mr Bowditch. But this doesn’t change the fact that my first statement still stands. The carriages have _gone_.”

She stated, slower and with the hope he would grasp the concept this time.

“I can confirm that.”

James spoke up, maybe the damned fool would take his opinion if it came from a _man_. He seemed to have a toxic aversion to Violet.

“We were outside just now. And there are _long gone_. There aren’t even any tracks from them in the snow. They must have left almost the _second_ after we first gained entry into the house.”

James spoke in gentle and plain defeat.

“w-what about our luggage? All our work things?” Tibbett asked kindly

“Piled up on the doorstep.” James answered.

The three men looked shocked. None of them quite knew what to say either.

“Couldn’t we send for another?” Forger suggested.

“And who precisely would venture out into this? An _idiot,_ perhaps…”

Bowditch snarled. Looking pointedly at Violet. Who mirrored his glare right back at him.

“No good carriage company would send anyone out in this weather…”

Tibbett pointed out with polite worry painted on his face.

"Especially not with the nearest town being eight miles away..." Tibbett added. 

"And no one would go out on foot. Two seconds out there. Why. You'd die of hypothermia before you reached the end of the front drive..." Forger said fearfully. 

There was silence among everyone for a second. Before Crawley spoke up with the one fact that nobody wanted to hear. 

“So, we’re _….. stuck here?_ ”

Crawley asked slowly, his eyes glittering with malice as he took in his colleagues words..

James didn’t want too. But he nodded. He had worked through every solution. Every possible means she could think of. But he too had to draw the same reality of the dreadful conclusion. 

 

 _Stuck_.

Violet sighed to herself. She looked up at the grand house before her.

She didn’t know about being stuck. It felt more like they had been successfully _caught._

They were the helpless creatures tangled in the spiders web. And the squalid house was the hungry scuttling spider. They were well and truly… well. Not stuck as such, that implied they could wriggle free.

_They were Trapped._

 

 

 

_~_

 

 

 


	8. Dinner, Poisonous Men and Tea

 

 

 

After all their seperate tasks, as instructed by both Violet and James. All six colleagues met back in the foyer as commanded. Forger and Crawley were sent to scout to see what remaining rooms bore furniture to sleep on. James went to check the condition of the kitchens. And Tibbett and Bowditch went to the outhouse to help chop and collect firewood. Violet growled in a terse manner to James that if he thought she would sit and idly twiddle her thumbs as the gentleman did their tasks. Then he was sorely mistaken. James almost chuckled at that. And instead issued her the task of helping to see if there was any means of sending a telegraph to Marbleton asking for help. She got to work right away, and did find the means to send such a telegram directly to the Police Inspector in Marbleton. Were it not for the fact that every conceivable cable had been slashed.

That settled a pit of niggling worry into her stomach.

She headed back through the labyrinthine hallways, coming to the centre foyer. Where most of the men were now gathered. Save for Forger and Crawley. James had abandoned his jacket, and rolled up his white shirt sleeves. Stood with his hands on his hips, very much looking like he was in charge. Violet still had the shawl Crawley linked around her shoulders, cocooning her body in the musty old thing. But it did serve to keep the cold at bay.

“Well?” James asked eagerly as she came to the circle of men.

“The wires have been slashed. There is no way to send, nor receive a telegram…” She gravely informed.

James sighed. Looking to his feet, before Bowditch and Tibbett spoke up with what they had found of firewood..

“There is heaps more chopped wood to be made use of.”

Bowditch informed snidely

“Well. That is a _small shred_ of comfort, I suppose..” James exhaled.

“And what of the Kitchens, James?” Bowditch asked.

“Suprisingly well stocked. The door was bolted from this side, it appears the some of miners off duty had grown used to keeping their food in the larder and the cupboards. Alas, that was the furthest they ventured into the house. Fearing the reputation, they nailed planks across the door. I eventually broke in.” James told.

“There is some wrapped meat, bread, though a little stale. Milk for tea, kept chilled by the icy drafts in the place. And plenty of vegetables in sacks under bottom shelf of the larder. I should think it should be enough to sustain us for the night..” He educated them.

Violet could see now, that his big smooth hands were a little scratched and cut. Calloused and afflicted from shoving the door inwards. She was almost certain he had gained splinters from such a thing. _Heavens, he needed to get them out before the wound started to fester._

“That too, is a stroke of luck. Considering the rotten fortune we are buried under at present…” Tibbett professed.

“The outhouse is stocked with plenty of firewood. We brought back many huge baskets of it, led by the back door.” Tibbett then added.

“Excellent. We’ll have enough to stoke the fires down here.” James spoke.

They looked across the foyer, to see Crawley and Forger clack their way back across the floorboards. Across to the group from the stairs.

“There are six very servicable rooms above stairs. One on the first landing, three on the second floor, and two on the third. All of which boast a bed, and four of which have functional powdering facilities…” Crawley told.

“Though they are all rather far apart from one another, that is quite a drawback. We believe you would be most comfortable in the only room on the first floor, Miss Sterling. It is of feminine design, and has a larger bed than most. We supposed that would be most comfortable for you.” Forger added.

Violet smiled, meekly.

“Thankyou.” She offered.

“How shall we allocate the other rooms between us?” James asked.

“Well. You, Mr Forger, and Mr Tibbett may take rooms on the second. And I’m sure Mr Bowditch and I shall have no reservations upon being on the third floor.” Crawley spoke up.

“Then that is settled.” James finalised.

“Our plan of action is this. We shall sleep here for the night, and should the snow let up by morning then some of us shall venture the eight miles to Marbleton to fetch a carriage, and come back for the others.” Beaumont insisted.

“…And if the snow does not let up?” Crawley spoke gravely.

“Then we remain here, until it does…” James ordered.

“That should give us ample enough time to complete our surveying. And not to mention it would be a good opportunity to ensure we don’t _miss anything_ about this house. We may _unearth all_ the secrets about it’s _ruin_.”

James insisted to the group. Seeing Forger and Tibbet both nodded. Crawley leered at the statement. Bowditch just looked like his usual sneering self.

Violets blood shuddered cold at his words.

 _Unearth all the secrets about it’s ruin._ She doesn’t know why, but that struck her with terror. Especially when she heard Thomas Sharpe’s voice echo into her head.

 _“Some secrets are best left well enough alone, Violet.”_ He rasped to her thoughts.

She swallowed. Looking down to her feet, before meeting her colleagues eyes again.

“Is everyone clear on the matter?” James asked.

This was met with a gruff chorus of grunts.

“We are to wait in this crumbling, leaking drafty old wreck and treat it like a _sordid_ little holiday?” Bowditch sneered to James.

“Do you have any better alternative suggestions? Bowditch? If you do then for gods sakes man, out with it. Because I don’t see any viable suggestions coming from you.”

James drilled. Stepping closer to the revolting human being. Looking very thoroughly irked.

Bowditch seemed to shut up then. Thank god.

Violet wrapped the shawl tighter about herself. Before she decided to remove herself from their company, and help along with making their stay in this house a little more hospitable. They all hadn’t eaten since noon that day. If the kitchens were as well stocked as James promised them to be. Then she was sure to find something. And she hadn’t a doubt that one man here would know a frying pan from a teapot.

“I shall see to getting us all something to eat.”

Violet remarked, holding her skirts aloft slightly, she bypassed all the men heading past the foyer and out in the direction of the kitchens.

“Oh. Has the lady _finally_ learned of her place?” Bowditch sneered after her.

Violet turned back, exhaling a glare at the horrid man.

He sneered wider, allowing her to glimpse his yellow, twisted teeth as he leered at her. She didn’t even have the energy to fight back at him. She was tired, cold, hungry and unnerved at having to spend a night in the creaking, creepy old house that was crumbling around her. Riddled with dark secrets and spirits.

His sneer was prematurely cut off. Little did everyone know, but the house did have eyes. Those eyes were blue, and they burned at Bowditch from the shadows he cloaked himself in on the landing. Thomas glared at the back of the man’s head. His jaw was resolute and his fists clenched. As soon as his fingers curled into his palms. The floorboards under Bowditch’s feet slowly whined, and then violently buckled up. Splintering and shattering under his very feet. Throwing him off balance as he stumbled. The grin wiped right off his horrible face.

Violet looked astounded, and his colleagues around him scattered away from him. Jumping out of their skin at the turbulence of the floorboards suddenly breaking beneath him.

“What the devil-“ The man stuttered, looking back up to Violet. As if she was a terrifying creature. Who owed him an explanation for it.

But as it was, she only smiled to herself, and stalked off in the direction of the kitchens. Thomas watched her go from the landing. _No one would dare slander her again whilst he was still stood, and remained on this earth._

Maybe some of those spirits, especially the kindred handsome ones, weren’t _so bad_ after all. Why, anyone who coulc put the revolting Mr Bowditch in his pace was _more than alright_ by her books.

 

~

 

James had been right in the contents of the kitchens being sparse. But she made do. She was used to her father rationing their meals, and the costs of such at home to try and not let too much money loose from the confines of his pocket. So she was more than used to dealing with minimal ingredients to build up a meal. Within an hour, she had made a huge steaming pot of beef stew. She had made stock boiled from the bones, added numerous vegetables, and eventually came to friendly terms with the temperemental old oven.

When it came time to eat, she walked back through to the foyer, to see the gentleman had amassed their strength and dragged out a long oak table from somewhere, and had scouted high and low for six chairs to go about it. The fire in the grand hearth was roaring, giving if but a little warmth to where they all sat. She hauled the large pot of stew out there, and served everyone up a portion onto the chipped dinner ware she found, buried back in the cupboards. She had carved up hunks of less stale bread to go with the stew, saving some of it for another day. She didn’t know how long they would be stranded here for. And they sat and ate in silence. The only chatter came from Tibbett and Violet, and occasionally Forger, chipping in about what they had surveyed about the house so far, earlier in the day.

“The third floor Is in the worst state of all. Everything below third seems to be in perfect working order. But _up there_..” Forger paused. His spoon hovering over his nearly cleared plate.

Violet was leaning forwards on her seat. Curious for more.

“Well. The only way I can think to describe it, is that someone had an attack of rage up there. The walls are slashed, the rooms destroyed, every object smashed and bludgeoned. I cannot imagine what fury would cause such destruction….” Forger shook his head.

“Anger beyond our own comprehension, I imagine. If we are to believe any of the old tales about this grand place..” Crawley spoke up. The first words he had spoken all throughout supper.

“Ah, yes. The wicked master, and the deranged sister… Lovers at that too.” Bowditch chimed in.

Violet didn’t take comfort in the way the house groaned and growled above them after he spoke. More specifically, the noise came far off, high up in the house, echoing from up on the third floor.

“I’m sure it’s all speculation.” Violet added as she cast her eyes down, and continued to eat silently.

Bowditch chuckled.

“I can’t imagine what sort of man would even think of letting a place like this fall into disrepair. It’s careless. He should have produced an heir, then maybe that would have ensured the houses survival, rather than being concerned about whom was the next woman to warm his bed...”

Truth be told, Violet wasn’t sure it had ever truly _died_ in the first place.

“Maybe, Mr Bowditch. Situations in this house were not as straightforwards as they ought to have been.”

“Are you defending the man who seduced, murdered and butchered innocent rich women merely for their money?” Bowditch asked her. That yellow sneer back on his lips once more.

“Not in the slightest. I just think you shouldn’t crow too dogmatically about situations in which you have _little_ baring, Sir. None of us can ever know, for certain, what happened in this place. We did not live here. It was not our house, nor our lives taking place in it. And coming to such brutal ends…” Violet explained.

“Yes. And you never showcase your opinions, do you Violet?” He sarrced at her.

“Only when I think I am being talked down too.” She bit back. “Which in regards to you. Mr Bowditch, happens everytime you open your mouth.” She gently fought back.

“Leave the lady alone. Bowditch. She’s done nothing to deserve your antagonism” Crawley snarled across the table.

Violet watched as Bowditch met Crawley’s eyes. And tilted his head slowly, dark eyes sizzling with heat and fury. As he noisily rapped his right hand on the table. Striking each finger against the wood, one at a time.

Violet didn’t know what had surpassed between them. But the violence was almost palpable in the air.

She concentrated back down on her food. Sharing a fleeting look with James before she did.

“Has anyone been to the lower level yet?” She asked.

“Unfortunately not. But apparantly Palmer didn’t get down there either. According to his notes, there was a key for the lift that was never recovered from the previous owners.” Tibbett spoke up.

“Recovered?” Violet asked.

“According to Mrs McMichael, The key was never found after she left the house herself. She doesn’t even know where it would have been kept.” Forger added.

“Who knows. It could turn up. There was not much down there, I gather. The original transcripts said that there was nothing down there but red clay stained cellars. Underlining the whole house.” Violet offered.

“God only knows what state they are in.” Tibbett thought aloud.

“Indeed.” Violet smiled weakly back.

“I can’t imagine that ten years of rot does _any cellar_ very well.” Violet remarked.

“Nor the whole house for that matter. You’ve seen this place have you not? Every inch is peeling, and dying and destroyed. How in hell could it ever be repaired to it’s full glory. You would need thousands, _millions_ , to just begin to make it even become inhabitable again..” Crawley spoke up in amazement.

James looked at him then. He was the son of a property surveyor, but those words sailing out of his mouth made it sound like he hadn’t _a clue_ about his profession whatsoever. Beaumont frowned a little to this. It did make him wonder.

“Well. That is our task. Being stranded here should give us a good long while to properly get to know the place, and document every leaking ceiling tile, and every crooked brick as best as we are able.” Violet sunnily supposed.

It was at this point that they had all realised they had cleared their plates. Violet stood to clear them away. Bowditch made a huge show of very smugly handing her his plate. Waving her off as she finally suited the position of being a true woman. Serving the men around her. She did nothing but narrow her cold eyes at him for that. Atleast Crawley and Tibbett were gentlemanly enough to help her with them to the kitchens. Forger thanked her for the meal, as James did too. Before Forger went to fetch more firewood, and James went to stoke the fire.

As soon as Forger left the kitchen, Violet became busy plunging her hands up to her elbows into a sinkful of hot water, face bland and miserable. That was before she could see that Crawley rolled up his sleeves, and stayed in the room, handing more plates across to her as she worked.

She looked at him with something resembling surprise across her features.

“You needn’t look so dazed. Violet.”

He spoke firmly, as she stook the dirty plate from his hands, dipping it into the suds below her.

“Careful. If Mr Bowditch catches you being so helpful towards me, assisting in fulfilling a woman’s task. I fear he’ll hate you are fervently as he does me.” Violet smiled lightly.

Crawley’s face turned to iron at this. Something hard curtained his usually soft, gleaming eyes. And his mouth became a ruler straight line.

“I _hate_ the way he talks to and treats you.” Crawley “He talks down to you as if you’re some inferior mess on the soles of his shoes. How can you stand it? If I were you, by now, even I would have battered him to within an _inch_ of his life.” He snarled.

“I bare it. because there is nothing else for me to do. Maybe set him down with a sharp word or two. Ladies, Crawley, use their _words,_ not _their fists_.” Violet reminded him.

“I attack him, and I would come off a lot worse than he would. He’s a man. He would be listened to by an man of repute. I would be thrown into a mental asylum and declared unsafe, for attacking a man.” Violet spoke in truth.

“I consider myself lucky to bare the right to want to tear his snivelling little head from his shoulders…” Crawley growled.

“I do not think you are the first to feel that way about him. I know that not many people in our offices stand him either. He character is about as palatable as a poisonous snake.” She spoke up.

Crawley said naught but handed her another dish. She dropped it into the bubbles, and washed. Rubbing harshly around the plate.

“You know. There doesn’t often come a time in the day when I wish I was something else. But today. Today. I really wished that I was a man. Just so I could hold my chin high, meet his eyes, and let out my fury, and quite rightfully clobber him one.” Violet sighed, her arm angrily and furiously scrubbing the dish now.

She looked over to see that Crawley had gentle empathy painted onto his features as he looked across to her.

She put the plate down, and wiped away the frustrated tear that tracked down her eye.

“I hate feeling so helpless.” She murmured after a long quiet second.

Crawley tilted his head, before he turned and saw that there was a kettle on the stove beside them.

“Cup of tea?” He asked. Crossing to the stove, lighting it, and filling the kettle, placing it back on the hot plate to boil.

Violet sniffed miserably, wiping her dribbly nose on her shoulder. It was so cold in here, it made her nose run.

“Thankyou. Means I don’t have to make it myself…” She offered meagrely.

Crawley smiled.

“I wager you’ve had enough men treating you like their secretary.” He asked.

She found herself nodding.

“A habit even my own father has been felled by. Instead of, _‘Pass me those account’s you sorted, Violet’_ it now leans more towards ‘ _Go and make the gentleman tea, Violet. Quickly about it. And ask Mrs Lambkin about my two o’clock.”_ She quoted.

“He still treats you with disdain for the way you rejected James?” He asked.

“I think he will treat that way for the rest of _mine, and his_ life. He thinks me foolish. He wishes me to quit the sphere I was brought up in. So that he could finally say I made a fine match in marriage. And be offered the funds which a wealthy husband provides.” Violet answered.

The kettle began to hum and bubble on the stove behind them.

“Forgive my statement, but I believe he is still partial to you.” Crawley spoke up in admittance.

“ _He isn’t_.” Violet spoke glumly.

“He was beside himself when you were injured. I’ve never seen a man look so ashen. I believe that he does still bare affection toward you.” He insisted. Smiling across at her.

“He is engaged. To a pretty girl back in Windermere. Mary Jane Seymour. She has 10,000 a year, and she is respectable, beautiful. She has golden hair and big lovely blue eyes. And I am…. I am _confident_ they will make a fine husband and wife for each other..” Violet spoke slowly. Each word like a dagger to her heart.

Crawley saw _right through_ her weak smile.

“Whatever the situation between you two may be. I’ve noticed how he watches you when you think he is not. Do not brush him off instantly, Violet. He is not as strong as he seems. He may not be entirely all over you as he so falsely claims. The man may be engaged Violet. But that is not a marriage. Engagements are broken every day.” He promised her.

“Don’t loose heart.”

He informed her, before he crossed to the shrieking kettle and poured a great glug of water out of it into a kettle, and reached for the cobwebbed jar, batting the dust away, reaching in and tipping out a great heap of loose tea leaves to swirl into the water. Steam from the boiling water rising into the air.

She carried on scrubbing and cleaning, with her back to him, until there were six plates piled on the draining board. She unplugged the sink, and dried her hands. Just in time for Crawley to hand her a steaming cup of perfectly brewed tea. She smiled and gratefully accepted it.

“Thankyou. You’re very kind.” Violet smiled warmly. Sipping at it.

“Between you and me, everything is solved by a good cup of tea.”

He winked. Giving her a flashy smile that almost made him seem handsome. Before he strode out of the room. And away down the hall. She watched him go. Chuckling, shaking her head before she took a sip of her tea. She winced a little. The tea must have been off. It was a little bitter. But, she wasn’t fussy, tea was tea. She drank it all. Remarking to herself that it was in fact, the second time he had insisted on making her tea. _What a gentleman_. She thought.

 

 

~


	9. Love, Passion and Confessions

 

 

 

~

After finishing her tea and tidying up the gloomy kitchens. Violet made her way back through the house. When she came to the foyer. She saw that Mr Beaumont was alone. Everyone else had obviously taken to their rooms for the night. She wet her lips, crossing to him. trying her best not to trip over the uneven floorboards. He was crouched, staring deep into the flames in front of him, idly stoking them. A poker in his hand.

She came up behind him. Wearing the shawl come blanket that Crawley was so kind as to give her earlier. Clutching it to her shoulders, and coming to rest on the dining chair behind him. He only turned when he heard her voice.

“Have the others gone to bed so early, already?” She asked.

He turned to face her. His hair striking an amber glow off the blonde locks. His pale face glinting in the ochre flames light, and his blue eyes dimmed by the ferocity of the amber embers in the hearth. But he still looked like the striking man she fell in love with.

“Yes. I believe they wanted to become better acquainted with their sleeping quarters..” He offered, nodding.

“I myself wanted to stay down here, and keep warm for a little while.” He added.

She smiled.

“Yes.” She agreed meekly. Folding herself onto the chair.

She watched him wince as he went to stoke the fire once more. Then she remembered earlier, when breaking open the kitchen door, sustaining several injuries and scratches to his hands in the process.

Violet tilted her head, leaning forwards and sliding her small pale hand atop his, forcing him to lay down the poker, seeing the damage that was done, as he had several small splinters and cuts on his fingers, and his palms.

“If you leave it like that, Mr Beaumont, It will become _infected_. And then you’ll be sorry..”

She said gently. Smiling like a chiding mother hen. Before she rose to her feet and went back to the kitchens. There _had_ to be a first aid kit somewhere. Eventually, after some digging, she found it. the items within were musty and ancient, but they would do, nonetheless. She made her way back to the man, who now sat, lit by candlelight, at the end of the long oak table. Violet silently crossed, stood the tin down, it had been cradled under her arm, as she also carried a bowl of hot water, and a towel, and after carefully setting the bowl down, she flipped open the lid, examining the contents. Before easing herself down opposite him. There was some practically _prehistoric_ brown ointment bottle. With a peeling parchment label, with a cork stuffed into the muddy russet glass. The label as such promised it to be an antiseptic lotion or a healing balm of some kind.

“Give me your hands...”

She asked softly. Ignoring the sad irony of such a statement. Considering whom had rejected whom in their lives.

He did as told, folding out his palms to her, his eyes watching her own as she focused down on his, calloused, battered but large smooth hands.

She uncorked the ointment. It smelt _frightful_ , and after dabbing a little onto some cotton, and swiping it onto one of the bigger grazes near his wrist, the way he recoiled lightly, and grimaced, told her it stung some, too. She apologised timidly for that. But insisted she needed to keep the wound clean. He seemed to understand.

“Why are you so concerned about the welfare of my hands?” He asked, with soft humility to his tone.

“I am not such a vile tongued, long toothed spinster, who would find such joy in wishing a kind gentleman to suffer through a great deal of pain with the agonies of an infected nasty splinter, you know…”

Violet answered with a little smile, as she gently eased out a small shred of wood engrained deep into his skin with a pair of tweezers. She dropped the wood onto the side, discarded, and dipped the corner of a cloth into the warm water. Washing over his hand thereafter, stroking along his soft skin with it. Perhaps, a couple more times than the wound required. It was then she realised she was doing it more for her benefit of touching his skin, than cleaning his cuts and scrapes.

He chuckled at her words.

“Violet Sterling. I do believe you are a touch soft, you know. Under that pragmatic, and iron willed exterior that frightens most men away.” He smiled.

She met his eyes for a second, and he found he was _quite_ enchanted by the way her lashes cast a spider shadow to brush down her pale cheek in the murky candlelight that bathed her skin. He looked at her for a long time, as she examined his hands with a smile. Picking out more nubs of wood from him.

“It didn’t seem to work scaring you away..” She japed.

He mumbled a soft agreeable sound to her.

“And besides. I have enough to contend with the likes of Bowditch snapping at my heels every minute of the live long day. I don’t need another man grousing about the pain in his hands to go along with that..” She smiles.

He laughs to that.

“He is frightfully wicked to you. And I cannot quite distinguish why.”

“I’m an unwed young woman. Rightfully snatching a working place from a men’s commerce industry. I am his direct superior, and he can’t stand for the idea of being bossed by a woman half his age. And that’s not to mention the fact that when he – on one of the many occasions – approached my father and demanded I be set down from my position. He took the liberty of suggesting his own brother to take my role. My father declined, and chose me over Bowditch’s brother. And has _hated my guts_ everyday since, for it. That’s why he snarls, and spits, and spews hatred at me. I can almost forgive him for it, If he wasn’t so, unnecessarily _aggressive_ , in his swipes. ” Violet informed him.

“Your father made a _very_ wise decision in keeping you.” James told.

She nodded. But she didn’t really look as if she believed his words. She wrung out a small cloth from the medical box. Not meeting his eyes as she cleaned a big cut on his left hand.

“He regret’s it.” Violet spoke after a few long seconds of silence.

“He _used_ to be proud. Mother too. I could see it in their eyes. The way you just _know_ when you have made your parent’s proud of you. I haven’t seen that glimmer line his eyes, nor hers, for a _very_ long time now. Now the only thing I am rewarded with seeing there, is… _shame. And disappointment_.” She added, her throat thick as she tried to swallow through the emotion that choked her.

“If I had a daughter like you, Violet. I would _never_ be ashamed of her. I would thank every day, I would feel blessed to have a child like you, who attacked every waking day with the same rousing enthusiasm with which they pursue and chase everything in their life they so rightfully earned.” He promised, his hands sliding forwards and capturing hers as he leaned into her.

“The _worst_ thing is, that _I don’t_ blame them.”

She cried. Trying her best to stop tears dribbling down over her cheeks. James cupped her face, sliding close, looking as saddened as she had ever known him to be. Her grey eyes threatened to leak big fat tears down over her face.

“Why Violet?” He asks.

“I didn’t…I-…” She stumbled, he soothingly stroked her face.

She sighed. Reigning in her sadness. Touching her hand to cover his.

“I was disappointed and ashamed to have rejected you so cruelly, James. So to have them treat me in that way, was no punishment. _I needed to feel it_. To feel their _repugnance_. I needed to feel how _stupid and stubborn_ I was in refusing the love, and comfort of a good man. And on such inconsequential grounds… I didn’t want to be a miserable wife, chained to the oven, and doing _nothing_ but to serve the purpose of mothering children, and staying silent all her life. All I wanted was to _matter_ , to feel desired, to feel wanted. To feel like I made a _difference_.” She whimpered.

“You made a difference to me… so wholly. Violet. You- you made me know what it was to _ache_ for someone. Body and soul. To be so bewitched and beguiled, so much so it was nearly a _pain. A suffering_.” James whispered hotly.

“But you didn’t _desire_ me, _did you?”_ She asked.

“Of _course_ I did. How could you _forget the time_ we spent together...” He urged.

She exhaled a shaky breath. He was too close now it was mystifying. For a moment, she thought she’d do it. And he did too. They were both not a hairs breadth away from one another's lips. They had done it before. Indulged in the sweet bliss of sharing a kiss together. She knew his lips were full, and soft. And hers, to him, were addictive to nibble at, to crush her close and reunite the soft things with his sounded like heaven in that moment. Their breath scorched each other’s faces. His hand slid to cup the back of her neck, holding her where she was. But just before he groaned a hot breath and sealed his mouth to hers, she whispered;

“You’re engaged..” In a croaky voice that made him ashamed.

James swallowed. Eyes downcast. His hands slid from her neck.

“Mary.” She offered in one single word that broke his heart.

He sighed.

“ _Mary._ ”

He spoke glumly. As if he wished to curse the woman to whom he was betrothed.

“How are your hands now?” She asked after they sat in silence for a long while.

“Fine now. Thankyou.”

He offered kindly, meeting her eyes. Still a little dilated from the almost embrace they taunted each other with.

She stood. Rising, still with the shawl around herself to go above stairs and rest. James didn’t watch her walk away. For if he did, he’d never forgive himself for striding over and kissing her senseless. Like he was so longing for.

“Mary is the _luckiest_ woman in the world.”

Violet added, one hand braced on the banister leading up the stairs. The other clutching the shawl tight about her slender body.

She saw that he vaguely nodded.

She moved on. Making her way carefully up the stairs. And along the landing. Shutting herself in her room. Bracing her back against the door after she shut it. Sighing, long and slow. She bit her lip, moving across the room to her case. She unzipped the bag, and pulled out her white nightdress. She prepared for bed, quickly whipping off her clothes with no finesse. Struggling into her bland gown. Her hair left unbound, she wrapped the shawl about herself, aired out the musty bed sheets. And then slid between them. They were scratchy, and unfamiliar. And it felt beyond strange to inhabit a strangers bed. So she lay awake a while. Hearing the snow storm rage outside. And watching as the shaft of moonlight slowly migrated across the room, as the moon did in the foggy night sky. It striped across her bedroom. And a while later, she noticed it striped across the pale figure of a man, sat, watching her, lounging in the scarlet armchair by the window.

“He loves you. That man.” Thomas spoke plainly.

“There was some time ago when I loved him back.”

“You do not love him now?” Thomas asked.

“I thought I did. But. Now my… feelings are hard to decipher..” She insisted.

Violet thought it a little strange to let out such personal afflictions of the heart to a wavering, friendly spirit. And a stranger at that. But, it was a pair of ears willing to listen. And she didn’t have such luxuries all the time, as that.

“I can see the intimate connection between you. The link between your heart and his.”

“Some links aren’t strong enough to last..” She informed him.

“His affection for you is still palpable. I may be dead, but there are _some things_ I can still _feel_.” He answers.

“Lust, love. Marriage. Can humans really be satisfied eternally by such _bland_ measures as those?” Violet asked.

He was by her bed now. Sitting on the edge of it. She was facing away from him, curled up under the quilts looking at a random space on the wall.

“When two people share lust together. When they share passion, writhing about in bed, bonded to one another. It is hard to distance the heart from feelings of such bliss and pleasure.” He informed.

“I’ve never been lucky enough to experience true passion as that.” Violet confessed.

“A truly _sinful shame_ , my lady..” He whispered.

She felt his cold hand brush hair back from her face. Inspecting the raw tenderness of her wound by her right eye.

“Did you ever love someone, Thomas?”

She asked, turning to face him. Seeing he was still as handsome an apparition as she remembered him as. The raven hair, unsuccessfully tamed, the piercing eyes. That ivory skin like porcelain. She would be surprised if he had never known love. By his looks, she is sure, many a woman would have flocked to the tall, dark, handsome stranger.

“I did.” He answered.

“I loved, one woman, in my long, rotten and decaying life. And I lost her. I lost her to sentiment, to rage, and to a man who would love her ten thousand times more ardently than I could. The shame of knowing that almost killed me twice over.” He admitted.

Violet swallowed.

“Do you think you’ll ever love again?” She asks.

" _Oh, sweet_ Violet." He sighs.

His answer was to lean down and brush his lips softly, fluttering a kiss against her forehead. She felt the cool lilt of his breath hit her. And the kiss… The kiss was as if she had embraced someone who had come in fresh from the icy cold. Embracing their cold lips tipped with wind burn from chilling winds. And it thrilled her nonetheless.

“I believe I am already starting to.” He answers.

 

Before she can savour the kiss, and his words, she is already ushered deep into sleep. Thomas watching over her.

 

  

 

 

~


	10. Possession, Salvation and Protection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a horror fic, by the way, so it will be a lot more gruesome, tense and scary, from here on out. Just a warning, there is violence coming up, quite a lot.... my imagination is horridly vivid. I'm sorry if anyone is put off by that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She only realised she had fallen deep asleep, after listening so long to the gales which moaned and whaled through the house, that she notices when she is suddenly disjointed from it.

“ _Violet_ …” Came the cry.

Her eyes peeled slowly open. Seeing once more the dilapidated bedroom which housed her, _marginally,_ from the cold. As she felt a particular chill lick slowly up her spine, up from her cold feet. What woke her so, was the fact that it was Thomas’s voice, calling softly to her. Breaking the silence with his even, throaty tone.

“ _Violet. Open your eyes_ …” He ushers gently. Voice still a hush. Cooing to her.

She knows she shouldn’t have loved how he rasped her name, but, she _truly did_. In every way it was wrong of her, indecent, nearly. But then he’d do it again, and she’d get swallowed up _so wholly_ by it. It was a vicious circle.

She peered around, eyes slowly tuning into focus, to see that he wasn’t in the room. Yet she could _hear him_ speak her name again. She watched, through half lidded eyes, as her bedroom door swung inwards, slowly, a long, suffering whine torn from the hinges as it did. She blinked, slowly, still rested on her pillow, she slowly sat up, feeling her night gown slide slowly down and off her shoulder, to expose her cold skin. She turned onto her back, and after taking a second to mull over whether this was truly wise. She peeled the covers off of her, and gently lowered both her feet to stand on the icy chill of the bare floorboards beside her bed. Coming to a stand, she feels her gown smooth down over her body, resting to lap gently at her calves as she stood. Slowly inching over to the door. She unhooked her long blue gown from the end of her bed, pulling it on as she walked. Each step no more than a silent tread. So very slowly moving out into the bare patch of moonlight which flooded the landing just outside her room. Just as she steps into it, she looks down over the dark, and silent house, seeing no one else about, the lively spit and sizzle of the ambers in the hearth below faded away to grey ash, James had gone to bed too. It was clearly the very small hours of the morning. Well. When she said no one, that didn’t apply to the tall stretch of a man stood at the very bottom of the stairs. Impossibly handsome and regal in the moonlight. And he was wearing a smile which beamed up to her, as if it was solely crafted for her alone.

“ _Thomas?_ ”

She whispers down to him. Her voice still croaky from sleep. As she comes to the top of the creaking, and partially destroyed stairs. And he smiles wickedly up at her, something intimate flashing across his eyes up to her. It was safe to say, though he, on the two occasions he looked at her, there was often kindness and intrigue lining his eyes. The look he was giving her now, felt thoroughly different. She wasn’t sure why. But it felt, darker. She was more and more uneased by this side to him. This frenzied, almost masking something, happiness.

She slowly descends the stairs, one hand sliding down the smooth wood of the banister, careful for her bare feet to avoid getting any splinters jabbed deep into her. When she came closer to him, she watched as he raised one strong elegant arm, the moonlight shafting ethereally off his skin. As his eyes pierced through the still darkness at her. Under the heat that lingered there, she felt a little nervous. Apprehensive even. Such ardent looks she had never been used, nor accustomed, to receiving. Of course, she’s sure other women were. They batted their lashes, and flirted back. But not her. She did not possess such macabre confidence in taunting a fully grown man by grotesquely preening in front of him, like some strutting peacock showcasing its feathers. It was as she had said it him earlier, she had never been on the receiving end of such passion. So, maybe, she thinks madly, he was taking this into account.

When she reaches the bottom of the stairs, she wavers for a moment. Before she raises her hand, and lowers it, _so very gradually_ , into his. Feeling his soft skin, cool to the touch, and soft too. Slowly curl around her own, and he smiles wider. She watches, in a state somewhere near hypnosis, as his criminally long pale fingers slowly, in turn, wrap around her hand. Enclosing her.

She comes down to stand before him, dropping a full head of height lower than him. As he was so divinely tall. Her eyes peered up at him, and she swallowed nervously. That look in his eyes and his smile didn’t cease with lustfully dissecting her. Matter of fact, they grew all the warmer as she stepped down to join him. Almost looking pleased at the nearness now existing between them.

He grins. And it sends a wave of something _indefinable,_ to shoot through her.

“Come with me…”

He coerces, gently tugging on her arm, getting her to walk with him, along to the hearth, past the dead fireplace, and along a corridor no one had bothered to venture down yet. The hallways leading to the lift. To the cellars.

Her body jolts as she see’s this is where he’s leading her. And her feet come to a screeching stop. Cellars where no one had been for nigh on ten years. Why was he wanting to take her there now? In the dead of night, stealing her away with a wicked leer on his lips. Her gait slows, and Thomas turns to see why she was being so hesitant. Her mouth gapes as he twists to confront her, a gentle look taking over his face now, on seeing she slowed.

“What is it?” He asks with care. The easy going smile still on his lips. As he tilted his head to her.

“Why did you wake me to bring me _down here?_ ”

She asks gently, eyeing the crumbling peeled walls around them with apprehension. The air seemed darker down here. The cobwebs strewn on the floors and the walls fluttered in the blood chilling breeze that’s he could feel licking along her calves. Making her huddle down into the safety of her dressing gown. The way the house seemed more festering and rotting down her did nothing to ease her worries. The walls leaked damp and red clay as if it were weeping tears of blood in agony. And Thomas’s smile was starting to scare her.

“All in good time, sweet thing…”

He promises her. Aligning their bodies close, so close she could feel his front brush against hers, and he reached across to pull them even closer, stroking his hand to scoop under her hair and brush along the back of her neck, pulling her in, smiling wickedly as he did, his eyes eclipsing with something dark and forceful overtaking the blue depths. He was so close, that for a moment, she considered the very absurd reality, that he might _kiss her_. She stilled, expecting to feel his lips gently press onto hers. His hand still cupping her neck to keep her close. But then he smiled and stepped back, pulling her along with him once more. Her body knocked out of sync as she ignored the feeling in her gut, and followed.

He led her to a creaking old lift shaft. Which plunged, she imagines, several floors below them. Deep into the very dark bowels of the house. Before something occurred to her. It was barred all across with a gate. And the rusting lock stood in their way.

“But, Thomas don’t you need-“ She began.

He words fade away and he shot her a wicked leer as he pulled a small, ancient looking black iron key, out of his pocket. Before sliding it into the lock. The gyrating twist of the metal screeching, unlatching the locked gate, ebbs more fear into her. But she daren’t disclose that to him.

He withdrew the key. Pocketing it again. And taking her hand, pulling them both in the small space of the lift. Confining them both close together as he shut the gate, and the thing shuddered, lurched and wailed into life. Slowly scraping down the black putrid walls of the plummeted lift shaft. She looked across to him, her body cornered into the back of the lift by his tall frame as he came to loom close over her. His eyes searching across her face. He came to rest his arms, bracketing either side of her body. Staring deep into her eyes in a way that made her a little restless. His eyes seemed to appreciate the fact that under the shoulder of her dressing gown, her nightdress was slid far down her skin. Baring it’s beautiful, soft, pale and untainted expanse. He leans even more intimately into her body. His hand reaching up, and gently whipping away the blue cover of her gown. Her breath came out in ragged pants, as he reached to softly comb her long dark hair away from her shoulder, exposing the sweet sight of her naked shoulder. Her eyes fluttered shut. Bliss swarmed through her like a herd of flickering and thrashing butterflies as he stroked the tip of one finger from the join of her neck, down over the peak of her shoulder, touching to the silk of her upper arm.

“You have…such, soft, _uncorrupted,_ skin..”

He sighs, as he leans into her, his mouth ghosting over her ear. She shudders as his eyes visually deduce her, his hands sliding down off her.

“ _So untainted_ …”

He purrs into her neck. But the way he said it left her reeling. Not from lust. It was almost as if he was saying it in, _envy. Growling the compliment at her as if she was at fault for such a thing._ He didn’t say it as a lover would, cooing it flirtily into her ear, he snarled it as a _jealous lover_ would.

“You truly are, so _very beautiful_ , Violet. I wanted to share the secrets of my home with you…” He rasps, as the lfit clanged to a jolting stop. Having reached it’s final resting place. She peered through the gate behind him, to see nothing but darkness. And she noticed down here, the air was ice. And it smelled like muddy earth, and old decaying wood.

“Let me show you it’s old bare beauty…” He smiles, throwing the gate open, and stalking through it, having no reservations about tugging her along with him now. The cold concrete under her feet made her body wrack and shudder with every step. With every stride, she found her body wanting to pull further and further, arching back, away from him as he violently jerked her along.

“Thomas, you’re _hurting_ me…”

She held out in a whimper, trying to wrench her arm back. But finds this causes him to stop dead in his tracks. Not releasing her, but pulling her closer into him. He stared her down with a smile that made her unsettled. He walked them into the middle of the dingy room, with huge padlocked clay baths dotted all around them. They were stood in the middle of the aisle between them.

“Now we’re _truly alone,_ my dear… No one will _hear us_ down here…”

He sighs happily. One hand linking to her waist, the other forcing her to arch her back, and press herself deeper into his front. Her hands come up to his chest, trying to lever a couple of centimetres apart between them. Disclosing to her that he stole her away, urging her down here in order to try and secure some intimacy and privacy away from the rest of the listening ears in this house. But she had a feeling that the reasons for such was not innocent, and nor was it lusting after her either.

She pushed, and pried them apart. Stumbling backwards, she braced herself against one of the red clay baths. Feeling the sticky substance coat her hands, and the back of her gown. She felt it squelch under her feet too. She tried her best not to slip.

He was examining her with a frown, which half looked almost like there was a note of simmering violence furnacing away in his eyes at her pulling away from him. She blinks, trying not to pant too hard in fear, her heart leaping around her chest, thumping like a mad, rampant thing. Every beat fuelled by fear. And she never once considered that she’d feel scared because of him. He had seemed so gentle, so reverent, when they met. But the man stood before her now was shades away from the kindred spirit she thought she knew.

“I want to go back upstairs…” She said in a small hush.

His eyes examined her coldly.

“ _You can’t_.” He snarls. “We’re _not done_ yet…”

He answered, moving over to a bench at the side of the room. She watched him all the while. He put his back to her. And she stayed perfectly still, trying intently not to tremble, and telling herself not to panic. The human body was capable of immensely strange things during panic. And those things could lead her down a bad path. They could turn out to cost her most dearly. She tried the calm her thudding, terrified heart.

“Please. Thomas. All I want to do is go back to sleep. Back to bed. _Please_ will you let me go…” She asks clearly. Trying not to let her voice break through the words.

She hears both his hands slam down onto the wooden bench that he was stood in front of. And he went still for a moment. His back coiled and tensed like some python. Curling over, she saw he shifted to move something long, and shining, into his hand. Curling it into his palm, the way he had curled her hand into his not minutes previously. She span around. And she swallowed. Her eyes boring deep into his, as she slowly moved one foot behind the other, putting her back adjacent to the doorway. Ready to move herself, and sprint away if he so much as moved one more muscle to lunge at her. He had lied when he said he would not harm her.

She swallowed.

“I _can’t_ let you go back.” He promises. Moving closer. His face a deadly serious mask.

“You can..” She whispers. Nodding.

He shakes his head, stalking closer, moving quicker.

Violet’s body jolts. And then everything seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. A cold hand seizes her wrist, but from behind her. She screams, whipping round, before she feels her body tugged into someone behind her. Someone whose chest was panting raggedly. And whose arms enveloped her. She twisted up to see a furious looking Thomas behind her, tucking her body into his front. She whimpered against his hand that was clamped across her mouth. Her terrified grey eyes looked forwards to see he was stood before her too. Still. Snarling, and holding the long dagger of a silver knife, glinting in the little light across at her. Her eyes start to water with tears. _What was happening?_ _Was she going mad? Was her mind playing sick tricks on her?_ She braces herself against the Thomas who clutched an arm across her waist. Keeping her to him. Glaring furiously at the same man stood before them.

“Cheap Theatrics. Lucille. What other tricks have you employed?”

He asked her in a angered snarl. His blue eyes daggering the apparition before them. Jaw stiff with resolute, and absolute anger.

The vision in front of them tilted it’s head. And then, right before them both, melted away. Curling into whispers and curls of black smoke. Like fluttering black moths, swarming. And Violet could just about make out the cracked pale skin of a striking woman’s face swarm out of the mist. With dark hair, and a tattered black dress. Consumed by the black smoke that surrounded her. Violet’s eyes were wide and terrified.

Thomas moved her carefully, releasing her and pushing her so she was directly behind his body. Shielding her from the spirit in front of them. So this, Violet thinks, is the other spirit who would cause her harm. And almost did. Were it not for the mirror opposite of the ghost in front of her. Protecting her from danger.

“You will _not touch_ , nor harm _one hair on her head_. Do you hear me?”

He demands to the figure in front of them both.

A raspy, echoing mock of a chuckle. The voice like gravel crunching under carriage tyres, but with a hard edge, like a grotesque wail, spoke up at him after the sick, dark, laughter.

“Still _so weak_ , brother. _It’s laughable_. Trying to be so righteous when your soul is as black as mine. Then again, compassion always was your downfall. _Your sickness._ ” She snaps, the voice disturbed and smoky. It hardly sounded like a woman at all.

“I do not dispute that. But I can stop mine getting _any more rotten and blacker_ , unlike you.” He snaps.

“You cannot stop what is about to happen to them Thomas. _No one can_. This house is _damned_. The same goes for those souls who now find themselves trapped within it. It will pick the _meat off their bones one by one_ …” She insists.

Violet found herself inching further back. Thomas bracing himself in front of her all the while.

“You are to _harm no one. Lucille._ They have done you _no wrong_ …” Thomas shouts.

The spirit glared darkly at them.

“There are more _dark forces_ at work in this house than _me_ …” She insisted. Her voice a droning nag. She may have been speaking to Thomas. But her eyes were burning into Violet.

“Violet…” Thomas spoke up. Not taking his eyes off the blackened spirit.

“Don’t look back. Violet. _RUN._ ” He insists. Glaring at the spirit ahead of him. Blocking the door, so she couldn’t tear after Violet and harm her.

That was all the urging she needed. She broke into a run, her feet slapping the cold floor as she took off. Gowns sailing, hair flying. She launched her body into the lift, slamming the gate shut and willing it to go upwards faster than the controls would allow. It shuddered, and creaked, scraping along the black mould ridden walls. Eventually breaking to the hallway where she had come from. Her hands scrambled in a frenzied manner at the gate. Clawing to get out.

Back in the cellar. Thomas had not moved from blocking Lucille's path from getting after Violet. He felt a little better, and assured of her safety now he could hear her go up in the lift, as it shuddered along against the walls. He stared impassively at the dark, black, rotting creature stood before him. The demon that had become of the woman he once owed everything too.

“She is guilty of nothing. She does not deserve your wrath. Nor your attempts at her life…” Thomas spoke in low loathing.

“You’re _pathetic_. Clawing madly after any pitiful mortal in the blind hope you can enchant her, and she can in turn redeem you and your sinful soul. She cannot, and she will not. She is in love with the man in her company. She’d never _look twice_ at a creature such as you. How could she? You may think you have become more considerate, when you are doing exactly what _you always used to_. _Using_ a weak pathetic woman like her, for your _own selfish comfort_ and means.”

“She is _worth a thousand_ of you.” Thomas snarls firmly.

There came that raspy chuckle again as his Sisters spirit floated closer. Smoke whipping and curling at him.

“Then you should go and protect her from the person whose about to slip a _knife_ through her ribs…” She whispers darkly.

Thomas gently lets his eyes shut closed in defeat and fear.

“You think I lured her down here as bait? _Oh, Brother_. When will you learn. She now runs free above stairs, _far away_ from you. You were the bait…”

She insists. Before she circles him, coming about his back as he wishes he hadn’t been so headstrong and stupid. Blindly rushing to save her, not knowing his saving her just edged her further into danger.

“As I said. What other _cheap tricks_ have you employed?” He asks her in a low snap of his angered voice.

“No _tricks_ …” She sneered.

“I merely acted on the one man in this house whose mind is eaten away by dark hatred and greed. I did _nothing more_ innocent than planting a _little idea_ in his head..” She leers.

She came back around to his front once more. And he took great displeasure at seeing she wore a sickening smile.

“You better hurry to save her brother. If you intend to make her your _salvation_. _Only she doesn’t have long..”_

She grimaced before apparating away into a puff of smoke, curling up, taunting him still, ripping at his face.

 

~

 

Violet threw her body out of the lift, tearing through the gate so fast, she heard her skirts snag and tear on a jagged limb of sharp metal, trying to pull her back, but she relented, she tore past, running on even though she was being hurled back. She tore down the hallways, rounding the stairs, and not caring that the flimsy wooden steps were rotten through and could break under her feet. She ran on regardless. Her hand leaping up the banister as she pulled herself up, her feet jarring with each thud to each step, and when she came to the landing, she rounded the stairs quickly. Shooting down the long stretch of landing, to come to her room.

When she came grounding to such a severe halt, she felt the rug burn and snatch at her feet.

Someone was in her room. And seeing the skeletal profile of one certain poisonous gentleman, Mr Bowditch, stood by her window, silhouetted by the moons light, watching over her empty bed, told her she should be very afraid. _She should be very afraid indeed._ He loomed in the darkness, before he turned and glared straight at her. Her heart dropped down through her body, past her legs and onto the floor below her.

 _One_ , because he had a _carving knife_ in his hand.

And also because his eyes glowed an unnatural red. His usually dark pupils replaced with a vivid shade of nightmarish red.

She strode backwards, inching further away from him.

“Mr Bowditch..”

She gasped. Clattering backwards. Stumbling past the hallways that led down onto all the other bedrooms. She could hear the house groan and shift high above her.

“You’re not in bed..” He rasps lowly. His face snarling and twisting, snapping each word he spoke.

“I… went for… a _walk_..” She finished timidly. Lying. Her voice was quiet. But strong. “I had trouble sleeping…” She added. Making her lie that much more plausible.

He just continued to glare over at her. Seeing she had red clay on her hands and feet, and smudged onto her nightgown. It dripped up her arms. Marring her ivory skin in a macabre manner, that almost made it look like she was bleeding.

“What are you going to…..” She swallowed, nervously. Fear clawing at her throat cut her off. She reconsidered. Thinking more carefully on her word choice..

“…what are you doing with _that knife,_ Mr Bowditch?” She asks.

He glanced down to his hand. Red eyes fluttering to the sharp object in his hands. Violet tried not to whimper. His eyes were the most terrifying thing she had ever seen in _all her life_. He looked demonic. He looked _possessed_. Still in full dress from earlier. Dressed, neat and pressed in his stark pinstriped suit.

“I don’t know…” He spoke, as if reaching aloud to himself for an answer.

“But I know that I _have to.. kill you_..” He speaks finally. Her heart thumped louder hearing him confirm that.

_How many more people, both living and not, would wish her dead tonight?_

She shakes her head, swallowing her fear, which led thick in her throat, like bile.

“But you don’t _have to kill me_. Do you, Abner?”

She tried to reason. Even using his hardly used first name, that hardly anyone knew, to try and show him she was a friend, who didn’t need to die by his hands.

A movement to her left caught her eyes. And she peered so slightly left, flickering her eyes down for a second, to see someone inching along in the shadows. Glaring down the hallway at her. Crawley reached up and put a finger to his lips. Miming for her to be silent. He had obviously heard her scatter through the house, and seen that Bowditch was not in his room. Had come to enquire. Seeing her now held at knifepoint by a man who despised her, whose eyes were blood red, and whom was armed and more than ready to slip a knife through her back. Crawley was dressed in ruddy brown breeches, his white shirt gaping open wide on his chest, his hair mussed from where it had met with his pillow, his boots not making even a whisper as he slid along the shadows as silent as a slithering snake. His dark eyes fixed solely on her as he moved forwards, rolling his hand, telling her to keep his presence there a surprise to the man. Violet looked back to Bowditch.

“It came to me in my sleep. _It told_ me, _‘the girl has to die’_ or it said it would _kill us all…I’m saving us…”_ He cried loudly.

“ _Nothing_ will hurt you. I swear.” She promised, though she was now lying through her teeth.

“It will. It will and I’m not dying because of you…” He snarls. Advancing quicker on her now. Eyes like fire, and knife raised.

Violet backed away, realising there was little room to run too. She staggered back until her spine hit the solid wall that overlooked the staircase. Coming to the very end of the landing. She screamed and ducked as she felt Bowditch plunge the knife, tearing chunks out of the wall as he attacked her, ripping the wallpaper. She tried her best to fend him off, grabbing his arm and trying to hold it aloft. But he was stronger and more determined than she was. She tried clasping onto his arm with both hands, trying to throw him away as he pressed her against the wall and tried to sink his knife into her, attempting to slash at her face, to cut her anywhere he could…

There came a roar from behind them both, and she felt Bowditch grappled, As someone, presumably Crawley, tore in rage at the man’s coat. Pulling him away from Violet, and shoving him away, putting his body in front of her, throwing a punch at the man that knocked him away. Bowditch staggered away down the landing. Clutching the knife still, but snarling as Crawley had managed to tear a cut into his lip. Crawley lunged to attack him again. But Violet tore into his shoulder, holding him back. Her hands slipping onto his hot skin, as she braced him back.

“I _warned you,_ Bowditch. What would happen to you if so much as snapped at her again…” Crawley defended. Snarling in fury.

“ _Wait._ Wait. _Seth, Wait_. _Look at his eyes_. _Look at him._ Something's _wrong_ …”

She cried, nodding forwards, seeing that his eyes were still full of red fire and rage as he crouched down, knife still to hand, braced over holding his knees.

“He was trying to _kill you._ Violet.” Crawley pointed out in rage.

She nodded.

“I know…. But. There’s _no godly reason_ as to why his eyes are such a… _colour_ … _look_ ”

She offered back. Clutching onto Crawley’s shoulder. As he too saw the demonic red that littered the mans eyes. Her front pressed into his back as she whispered directly, in a low tone, into his ear as they both looked at him. her fingers were grappled, and fisted onto his shirt, slipping onto his muscled skin where she held tight onto him in protection. Her knuckles brushing against the solid mass of his warm, bare skinned, shoulder.

“ _Out_ of my way…”

Bowditch stormed towards them, slamming his hand across Crawley’s head so fast, stunning the man, who sunk down to the floor, giddy and reeling from the blow that disoriented him. Violet kicked and clawed, yelling, but Bowditch leered closer with that knife again. Violently about to shove it up, and into her gut, striking a blow which would most definitely kill her.

It was then she registered what happened to him, as he stood not an inch from her face. She screamed as she saw Crawley’s hand rip across the man’s neck. And she felt something warm and red spatter across her, as she then saw the waterfall of shining red blood erupt in a tirade from his throat. She still screamed, even when he slumped to his feet. Eyes wide and red, shocked as he tried to clutch his torn open throat. Squelching and gasping, stuttering up mouthfuls of blood as he did.

Crawley viciously kicked the skeletal man so he toppled sideways, and his body fell, and tumbled away from her, down the stairs just to her immediate right. Ploughing through the banister at the bottom, even with his slight weight, staying completely still afterwards. Puddles of blood scattered, in drips and rivers down the dark wooden stairs.

She stayed pressed to the wall. Trying to comprehend what had just happened. She never liked the man, it was true Abner Bowditch had a filthy temper. And manners like a sewer rat. But she would never had wanted him to die. A man had just been killed, not centimetres from her face. She stood, swallowing, and whimpers still escaping her lips. Her body soaked, and splattered with the mans still warm blood. Soaking onto her nightgown, drops of it decorating her face, spilling down her front. Crawley stood beside her, in his blood soaked right hand, he held a long dagger which he used to cut the man’s throat open. He was spattered with it too. But he was looking down the stairs at the mangled form of the man’s spindly and lifeless body with something like pleasure shining in his dark eyes.

“Is..he..dead?” Violet stammers in a hush.

“Very.” Crawley snapped, looking down at the pitiful man.

Footsteps thundered through the house behind them. And in no time at all, Violet saw James, Forger and Tibbett appear in the hallway. All dishevelled from sleep. All startled at hearing her and Crawley scream and yell.

“Violet?”

James asked in a hush, snapping on his braces, crossing to her. He wore black breeches, and a gaping white nightshirt tucked in, with black braces holding his breech waist high, boots on his feet. And both Tibbett and forger wore clothes, but their middle aged podgy figures were bundled into gentleman's dressing gowns.

His eyes flicked down to see she was partially drenched in blood. Before he turned his head and saw the lifeless form of Bowditch crumpled on the foyer floor. Red eyes ceiling bound. Glazed and fixed as flakes of snow swirled in, melting over his dead body.

“What happened?” Tibbett asked.

“Is he dead?” Forger felt inclined to add, staring down at their colleagues unmoving form.

“He attacked Violet. He would have killed her had I not acted. The man was crazy _, possessed._ Almost as if he had, gone… _rabid_.” Crawley confessed.

Violet’s knees buckled, just in time for James to act, sliding to her, pulling her weak, trembling form into his arms. The dying splutters of the man, and the waterfall of blood playing over and over again in her head. She clutched onto James’s shoulders and sobbed. Burying her head into her friend. Scared, shaken and though she prided herself on never crying. Her body broke down and gave into the hysteria that wracked through her.

“ _No one can hurt you now. It’s ok_ …Violet, _it’s ok_.”

James soothed, stroking his hand down the back of her head. His minty eyes looking across her shoulder to the also somewhat blood drenched Crawley. Whose eyes shone dully back at him. Like unpolished moonstones.

 _No it isn’t_ …

She wailed internally, clutching onto her friend. Breathing and sobbing great gulps of air, nuzzling down into his neck. Feeling weak and so very jolted by seeing someone slaughtered in such a violent way, right before her eyes. Close enough to hear his dying breath, to see the light leave his eyes, and feel the blood drench her.

“What do we do?” James whispered after her sobbing calmed down. Still looking across to Crawley to produce an answer.

Crawley looked down the stairs.

“Bury him.” He answered.

“Now?” James asked in shock.

“No. In the morning. I’ll dig a shallow grave just out the back door. Did he have any family?” He asked.

“No, I don’t think so…” James answered, still stroking Violet’s head soothingly.

“Then no one will _miss him_..”

Crawley added, slowly marching down the stairs. All the men watched as he threw a sheet from the nearby chaise, to blossom across the man, covering up the corpse until the morning came. And Abner Bowditch would find himself confined to an unmarked, shallow grave. With no one to grieve for him. Nor to mourn his loss.

“James. Get Violet to bed, I’ll bring her a cup of tea to settle her down. Whilst everyone returns to their beds…” Crawley ordered.

James nodded.

When Violet dared to tear her eyes up from James’s neck. She looked straight down into her room, her tears beading away as she saw Thomas stood by the end of her bed. None of her colleagues able to see him, like she could.

 _“I told you. This was where monsters prowled. Violet…”_ He spoke grimly.

 

~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One Down. Five to go....


End file.
